Mormon Musings

A wintry verse of scripture reads, "He trieth their patience and their faith" (Mosiah 23:21).  If we do not understand this fact, we will misread life.  But why does God try our faith and patience in particular?  Why not try our ability to make money or amass political power? The Lord is not concerned with these skills.  Patience, however, is an eternal quality.  It is portable.  So is faith. These qualities are out of the developmental reach of those who are caught up in the cares of the world. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, " Moving in His Majesty & Power " page 58.

Even something as small as a man’s thumb, when held very near the eye, can blind him to the very large sun. Yet the sun is still there. Blindness is brought upon the man by himself. When we draw other things too close, placing them first, we obscure our vision of heaven. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Of One Heart: The Glory of the City of Enoch (1975), 19.

“Throughout scripture we encounter the need for us to remember that the Lord has His own timetable for unfolding things; it will not always accord with our schedules or our wants. When, in our extremities, we urgently call for a divine response, there may be, instead, a divine delay. This is not because God, at the moment, is inattentive or loves us less than perfectly. Rather, it is because we are being asked, at the moment, to endure more for the welfare of our souls. The blessed meek understand that God loves them even when they may not be able to explain the meaning of what is happening to them or around them.”  -Neal A. Maxwell  (Meek and Lowly, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987, page 89)

"Only when we see through Heavenly Father’s eyes can we be filled with the pure love of Christ.—Dale G. Renlund" —Dale G. Renlund, " Through God's Eyes "

How often have you and I really pondered just what it is...that will rise with us in the resurrection? Our intelligence will rise with us, meaning not simply our I.Q., but our capacity to receive and to apply truth. Our talents, attributes, and skills will rise with us, certainly also our capacity to learn, our degree of self-discipline, and our capacity to work. Note that I said "our capacity to work" because the precise form of our work here may have not counterpart there, but the capacity to work will never be obsolete. To be sure, we cannot, while here, entirely avoid contact with the obsolescent and the irrelevant. It is all around us. But one can be around irrelevancy without becoming attached to it, and certainly we should not become preoccupied with obsolete things. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Devotional, September 1981

" Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.  And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come." D&C 130:18-19

"When the Latter-day Saints make up their minds to endure, for the Kingdom of God’s sake, whatsoever shall come, whether poverty or riches, whether sickness or to be driven by mobs, they will say 'it is all right' and will honor the hand of the Lord in it, and in all things, and serve Him to the end of their lives, according to the best of their ability…If you have not made up your minds for this, the quicker you do so the better." Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:338

"Brethren [and sisters], shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren; and on, on to the victory! Let your hearts rejoice, and be exceedingly glad. Let the earth break forth into singing. Let the dead speak forth anthems of eternal praise to the King Immanuel, who hath ordained, before the world was, that which would enable us to redeem them out of their prison; for the prisoners shall go free .   Let the mountains shout for joy, and all ye valleys cry aloud; and all ye seas and dry lands tell the wonders of your Eternal King! And ye rivers, and brooks, and rills, flow down with gladness. Let the woods and all the trees of the field praise the Lord; and ye solid rocks weep for joy! And let the sun, moon, and the morning stars sing together, and let all the sons of God shout for joy! And let the eternal creations declare his name forever and ever! And again I say, how glorious is the voice we hear from heaven, proclaiming in our ears, gl

It was Marcel Proust who wrote insightfully of pre-mortality as follows:  “All that can be said is that everything in our life happens as though we entered upon it with a load of obligations contracted in a previous existence. There is no reason arising from the conditions of our life on this earth for us to consider ourselves obliged to do good, to be tactful, even to be polite. … All these obl igations whose sanction is not of this present life, seem to belong to a different world, founded on kindness, scruples, sacrifices, a world entirely different from this one, a world whence we emerge to be born on this earth, before returning thither, perhaps to live under the empire of those unknown laws we have obeyed because we bore their teaching within us without knowing who had taught us.” (Marcel Proust, La Prisonniere, as quoted in Homo Viator by Gabriel Marcel.)

For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, Oh God, beside thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him. Isaiah 64:64 But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. 1 Corinthians 2:9

“I know that I am. I know that another is who knows more than I, who takes an interest in me, whose creature, and yet whose kindred in one sense, am I. I know that the enterprise is worthy. I know that things work well. I have heard no bad news.” Henry David Thoreau

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.” C.S. Lewis

Can you discern and understand the dealings of the Lord with this people from the beginning? If we can understand this, it is indeed a matter of great rejoicing to us. All intelligent beings who are crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives must pass through every ordeal appointed for intelligent beings to pass through, to gain their glory and exaltation. Every calamity that can come upon mortal beings will be suffered to come upon the few, to prepare them to enjoy the presence of the Lord. If we obtain the glory that Abraham obtained, we must do so by the same means that he did. If we are ever prepared to enjoy the society of Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or of their faithful children, and of the faithful Prophets and Apostles, we must pass through the same experience, and gain the knowledge, intelligence, and endowments that will prepare us to enter into the celestial kingdom of our Father and God. How many of the Latter-day Saints will endur

The past of each of us is now inflexible. We need to concentrate on what has been called “the holy present,” for now is sacred; we never really live in the future. The holy gift of life always takes the form of now. Besides, God asks us now to give up only those things which, if clung to, will destroy us! And when we tear ourselves free from the entanglements of the world, are we promised a religion of repose or an Eden of ease? No! We are promised tears and trials and toil! But we are also promised final triumph, the mere contemplation of which tingles one’s soul. My friends, there are footprints to follow where we must go—made not by a leader who said, safely from the sidelines, “Go thither,” but by a leader who said, “Come, follow me.” And our mortal leader is a prophet who is showing us how to lengthen our stride. Yes, for those in the Church’s courtyard or on its porch, ask not “for whom the [Church] bell tolls; It tolls for thee.” (John Donne,  Devotions upon Emergent Occa

In his book,  The Politics of Experience , R. D. Laing said, “What we think is less than what we know: What we know is less than what we love: What we love is so much less than what there is, and to this . . . extent, we are much less than what we are” (R.D. Laing in  Love , p. 19). Quoted by Patricia T. Holland in BYU Devotional, January 8, 1983 http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=873

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1987/10/yet-thou-art-there?lang=eng

During the Lord's postmortal ministry, the higher ordinances of exaltation were revealed. He has provided for these ordinances in His holy temples. . . . Our Master is a God of law and order. His focus on ordinances is a powerful part of His example to us." —Russell M. Nelson, " The Mission and Ministry of Jesus Christ "

We are made intelligent, and are heirs of the everlasting kingdom. Unless we forfeit that heirship, we are heirs to the glory and power of worlds to come; but we must take a course to maintain the position that we occupy. We are the children of our Father in heaven; and unless we do that which will cause our names to be blotted out, and our right to the blessings of the kingdom cut off, all will be well. Let us take a course to save all who will hearken to our counsel; let us be kind and charitable to all people, doing unto others as we would they should do unto us in like circumstances, and the blessings of our Father will be multiplied unto us. Brigham Young Journal of Discourses 8:73-74

What do we live for? To get dollars and cents? Those are very useful; the comforts of life are very agreeable; it is very convenient to have money to purchase what we need; and even if we sacrifice the comforts of this life to secure the blessings of that which is to come, we have then gained our point; we have gained everything. And remember that he and she and all who do the will of our Father who is in heaven will reap the reward of the faithful, for Jesus says, “Whosoever doeth the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my mother, my sister, my brother.” Again: There is another scripture which says something like this—”He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent me.” Hence, all that the Father hath promised unto the obedient shall be given unto him. Now, if all that the Father hath promised shall be given unto him that is faithful—to him that receives the kingdom as a little child, do you not see that by our unwavering ste[a]dfastness w