Mormon Musings

“There have always been and will always be charismatic men and women who can launch what sound like, on the surface, reasoned arguments against the Father and the Son, the Restoration, the Prophet Joseph, the Book of Mormon, and living prophets. But doubters and pundits never tell the whole story, because they don't know the whole story-and don't want to know. They opt for clever sound bites, hoping no one digs deeper than they have.” http://www.byui.edu/devotionals/sheri-dew

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/kevin-j-worthen_fear-not-2/

I recollect a dream that my father had. He dreamed that he was travelling, and that during his journey he came to a tremendous mountain of snow and saw that his pathway was hedged up. But some one said, “Take one more step.” My father replied, “But that will be the last.” However, he took that step, and then his guide said, “Do you not, see that there is room for you to take another?” When he had taken another, his guide told him to take still another in advance; and there was a passage all the way through. So it will be with us. The Lord will not reveal all that we at times wish him to. If a schoolmaster were to undertake to teach a little child algebra, you would call him foolish, would you not? Just so with our Father: he reveals to us as we are prepared to receive, and I hope to continue to learn. There is no cessation, in time nor in eternity, to the progress and increase of the righteous. If we will but put away every selfish feeling, we can come in possession of all the blessin

Angela Duckworth, in her book  Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance , stated, "Grit specifies having a passion to accomplish a particular top-level goal  and  the perseverance to follow through. Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare" (Angela Duckworth,  Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance , 2016, 250). Let me repeat the last part. "Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare." Angela Duckworth also wrote in the same book, "Grit grows as we figure out our life philosophy, learn to dust ourselves off after rejection and disappointment, and learn to tell the difference between low-level goals that should be abandoned quickly and higher-level goals that demand more tenacity" (Angela Duckworth,  Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance , 2016, 86). Concerning those who fall short, John Greenleaf Whittier's words seem particularly fitting: "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, / The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'

“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)

I work as hard as I can and do everything within my power. And I try to keep the commandments. Then I let The Lord make up the difference.  President Ezra Taft Benson