Mormon Musings

Harry Emerson Fosdick once wrote: “Some Christians carry their religion on their backs. It is a packet of beliefs and practices which they must bear. At times it grows heavy and they would willingly lay it down, but that would mean a break with old traditions, so they shoulder it again. But real Christians do not carry their religion, their religion carries them. It is not weight; it is wings. It lifts them up, it sees them over hard places, it makes the universe seem friendly, life purposeful, hope real, sacrifice worthwhile. It sets them free from fear, futility, discouragement, and sin—the great enslavers of men’s souls. You can know a real Christian, when you see him, by his buoyancy”  ( Twelve Tests of Character  [1923], 87–88). Elder Perry, Nov. 1999

To those who may feel they have somehow forfeited their place at the table of the Lord, we say again with the Prophet  Joseph Smith  that God has “a forgiving disposition,”    that Christ is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, [is] long-suffering and full of goodness.”    I have always loved that when Matthew records Jesus’ great injunction, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,”   Luke adds the Savior’s additional commentary: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful”   19   —as if to suggest that mercy is at least a beginning synonym for the perfection God has and for which all of us must strive. Mercy, with its sister virtue  forgiveness , is at the very heart of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the eternal plan of salvation. Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past. Now, if you feel too sp

Once when traveling with Elder and Sister Russell M. Nelson, we left our hotel in Bombay, India, to catch a plane for Karachi, Pakistan, and then on to Islamabad. When we got to the chaotic airport, our flight had been canceled. Impatiently, I said to the man at the airline counter, “What do you expect us to do, just give up and go back to the hotel?” He said with great dignity, “Sir, you never go back to the hotel.” We rummaged about the airport, found a flight, kept the appointment in Islamabad, and even had a night’s sleep. Sometimes life is like that: we are left to press forward and endure frustrated expectations—refusing to “go back to the hotel”! Otherwise, such “give-up-itis” will affect all seasons of life. Besides, the Lord knows how many miles we have to go “before [we] sleep”! (“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”). Elder Neal A. Maxwell, April 2004 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/remember-how-merciful-the-lord-hath-been?lang=eng&m

“No one of us can survive in the world of today, much less what it will become, without personal inspiration,” warns President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. “The gift of the Holy Ghost operates equally with men, women, and even little children,” President Packer says. “It is within this wondrous gift and power that the spiritual remedy to any problem can be found,” he teaches, and then quotes from the Book of Mormon: “And now, he imparteth his word by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times, which confound the wise and the learned” (Alma 32:23). President Boyd K. Packer http://www.lds.org/study/prophets-speak-today/unto-all-the-world/guided-by-inspiration?lang=eng

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/04/remember-how-merciful-the-lord-hath-been?lang=eng&media=video

"...do not expect the world’s solutions to the world’s problems to be very effective. Such solutions often resemble what C. S. Lewis wrote about those who go dashing back and forth with fire extinguishers in times of flood (see  The Screwtape Letters  [1959], 117–18). Only the gospel is constantly relevant, and the substitute things won’t work." Elder Neal A. Maxwell

Notably, at the last day the adversary “will not support” those who followed him anyway (see  Alma 30:60 ). He cannot. Jesus will triumph majestically, and the adversary’s clever constructs, “pleasing to the carnal mind,” will also collapse, and “the fall thereof will be exceedingly great” (see  Alma 30:53 ;  1 Ne. 11:36 ). Even now, one can see in the lives of those prodigals who come to themselves the devil’s doctrines dripping in early meltdown (see  Luke 15:17 ). Many, having experienced the utter emptiness of the lower ways, are “in a preparation to hear the word” and now await being informed of the rescuing revelations and translations (see  Alma 32:6 ). Neal A. Maxwell, April 2003 General Conference READ ENTIRE TALK