On Life:
We are all aware of man’s poor peripheral vision in that his views are often narrow and heedless of what is going on on each side of him. Man’s problem is often one of length of view, too. This poorness of perspective often produces wonderful and pathetic paradoxes men who have been given the blessings of life by the grace of God, cry that life is senseless men who have been given breath and voice by God, use the powers of speech to deny God’s existence men who have been given the capacity to feel, exult so much in this gift that sensual things sublimate spiritual things and some men who see our reaching out to distant places in our solar system conclude that this special planet is a random, unplanned mutant and refuse to connect the order of physical laws (that makes such journeys into space possible) with an Orderer.
On Adversary:
Time Management Tips The perpetual processing of the same temptation is both dangerous and time-wasting. Cycling and recycling the same temptation (instead of rejecting such blandishment out of hand) is not only to risk one’s soul, again and again, but is to bring on fatigue, so that the Adversary may be able to do indirectly what we will not let him do directly. A lack of decisiveness in dealing with temptation ties up our thought processes and prevents us from doing good with the time allotted to us.
On God:
God does not begin by asking our ability, only our availability, and if we prove our dependability, He will increase our capability.
… Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God’s relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us.
By seeing lifes experiences through to the end, on our small scale, we can finally say, as Jesus did on the cross, ‘It is finished.’ We, too, can then have ‘finished our preparations,’ having done the particular work God has given each of us to do. However, our tiny cup cannot be taken from us either. For this reason have we come unto the world.
Our God does not indulge us, but He is merciful toward our weaknesses as He strives to tutor us….
The submissive will make it through to that final scene, for the word of God will lead the man and woman of Christ ‘in a straight and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery … and land their souls … at the right hand of God in the kingdom, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers’ (Helaman 330) ‘who have been ever since the world began … to go no more out.’ (Alma 725)