Neal A. Maxwell Quotes (113 Quotes)

... 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.

For the faithful, our finest hours are sometimes during or just following our darkest hours.

The mortal experience ... is not like a college course which we can passively audit. Instead, we are taking lifes course for credit and there are no summers off not even semester breaks.

The authority of example and considerations of character, unlike pudding, are not whipped up in an instant.

Some mistakenly misread the mercy and graciousness of God. For instance, some partial believers are always scolding God, or disregarding Him, because of the observable and lamentable consequences of our misuse of God's gift to us of moral agency. It is as if a teenage son, given his first car, promptly had an accident with resulting pain, suffering, and expense, and the errant son then railed at his father for permitting the suffering resulting from the son's misuse of the gift of the automobile. Granted, in defense of the analogy, mortal parents ought not to give youngsters automobiles too soon, and then only when they have provided wise counsel, driver training, and so on. But there still comes a time when, if they are ever to drive alone, trained teenagers must be left alone at the wheel. The principle is the same with us in the second estate.

Just as meekness is in all our virtues, so is pride in all our sins. Whatever its momentary and alluring guise, pride is the enemy, 'the first of the sins.' One reason to be particularly on guard against pride is that 'the devilish strategy of Pride is that it attacks us, not in our weakest points, but in our strongest. It is preeminently the sin of the noble mind.' Not only of the noble mind, but also of the semi-righteous.

There are also flat periods in life which may well be the periods during whichbefore new lessons come the past lessons of life are allowed to seep, quietly and deeply, into the marrow of the soul. These outwardly flat periods, when enduring well may not seem very purposeful,, are probably the times when needed attitudinal alignments are quietly occurring. Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow. An experience is thus not only endured but also absorbed and perused, almost unconsciously, for its value. Such a process takes time. Therefore it is we, not God, who need more time.

In racing marathons, one does not see the dropouts make fun of those who continue failed runners actually cheer on those who continue the race, wishing they were still in it. Not so with the marathon of discipleship in which some dropouts then make fun of the spiritual enterprise of which they were so recently a part.

If the nearly one-and-a-half million babies aborted in America each year could, somehow, vote, chameleon candidates would find fresh reason to be concerned about abortion, whereas now they are unconcerned.

You must not mistake passing local cloud cover, for general darkness.

I thank the Father that His Only Begotten Son did not say in defiant protest at Calvary, 'My body is my own' I stand in admiration of women today who resist the 'fashion of abortion, by refusing to make the sacred womb a tomb'

The great challenge is to refuse to let the bad things that happen to us do bad things to us. That is the crucial difference between adversity and tragedy.

When great individuals move so marvelously along the straight and narrow path, it is unseemly of us to call attention to the fact that one of their shoelaces is untied as they make the journey.

Our little pebble of poor performance helps to start, or to sustain, an avalanche.

Yet, seeing this ingratitude of those who are without perspective should not cause us to make reflexive rejoinders to unbelievers. Rather, we, for our part, ought to contemplate how truly deep God's commitment to free agency must be, how truly deep (and u.

Those of little faith mistake local cloud cover for general darkness. Keeping spiritually intact results in our keeping precious perspective by seeing 'things as they really are.' (Jacob 413)

Gods anger is kindled not because we have harmed him but because we have harmed ourselves.

It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance....

It is understandable how some people could give way to this kind of pervasive pessimism, but we speak of a gospel which brings good tidings of great joy and this must be reflected in our lives, if we are to be believable especially as we suggest to others that there is, in fact, not only a better way, but also the way. Scriptures that speak of man as a being who 'might have joy' have more impact when falling from the lips or pens of men and women whose lives give fresh evidence of the validity of that scripture.

It is so easy to be confrontive without being informative indignant without being intelligent impulsive without being insightful.

Do not let the future be held hostage by the past.

All crosses are easier to carry when we keep moving.

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.

One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said 'Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.'

Patience stoutly resists pulling up the daisies to see how the roots are doing.

How could there be refining fires without our enduring some heat.

The dues of discipleship are high indeed, and how much we can take so often determines how much we can then give.

It is better to trust and sometimes be disappointed than to be forever mistrusting and be right occasionally.

Celestial criteria measures service, not status.

There is also the very real possibility that, in the justice of God, one of the reasons He uses the weak and the foolish of the world is so that no argument could be made later that certain people were advantaged in some unfair way by that which was unearnedeither in the premortal life or here. Hence it seems prudent for us to realize that just because one is set apart or ordained to a certain calling or assignment he or she must not expect to be set apart from the stresses of life. There appear to be no immunities.

God does not begin by asking our ability, only our availability, and if we prove our dependability, He will increase our capability.

Time Management Tips One can make a radar-like sweep of the horizon to identify time and task challenges while these are still manageable and while we still have a choice. The organizational adage, 'the more parts, the more trouble,' also applies to words. Multiplying words may actually multiply the probability of being misunderstood economies in expression (without being taciturn or aloof) not only save time, but usually are more honest and more clear. Regarding writing down thoughts and ideas often we never recover what came to us once and went unused. What is the wisest use I can make of this sliver of time Commit rather explicitly to goals.

Mercy can purge the soul of sin, making room for a fresh start. Truth is vital in order that we have an unvarying standard by which to determine what we are to be and to do and what we are to rid ourselves of. All the cardinal virtues, therefore, carry their own intrinsic as well as outward reward. A merciful man does do good to his own soul.

Ironically, as some people become harder, they use softer words to describe dark deeds. This, too, is part of being sedated by secularism. Needless abortion, for instance, is a 'reproductive health procedure, ...' 'Illegitimacy' gives way to the wholly sanitized words 'non-marital birth' or 'alternative parenting.'

Your task is to conquer yourselves, not ships, lands and castles. This battle is the one in which you especially are to come off conqueror. It is fought every day. In fact, it is a continuing process which commenced a long, long time ago.

The doctrine of foreordination is not a doctrine of repose instead, it is a doctrine for second- and third-milers, and it will draw out of them the last full measure of devotion. It is a doctrine for the deep believer but it will bring only scorn from the skeptic.

The Lord knows our bearing capacity, both as to coping and to comprehending, and He will not give us more to bear than we can manage at the moment, though to us it may seem otherwise. Just as no temptations will come to us from which we cannot escape or which we cannot bear, we will not be given more trials than we can sustain.

We must not fail, individually, for if we fail, we fail twice for ourselves and for those who could have been helped, if we had done our duty.

Men's and nations' finest hour consist of those moments when extraordinary challenge is met by extraordinary response. Hence in those darkest hours, we must light our individual candles rather than vying with others to call attention to the enveloping darkness. Our indignation about injustice should lead to illumination, for if it does not, we are only adding to the despairand the moment of gravest danger is when there is so little light that darkness seems normal.

Those who believe for a while make only a brief tour in the kingdom, though thereafter they often feel qualified to inform those who know even less about the Church but the fact is they were really only tourists not natives who really knew the kingdoms countryside.

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)

Comparatively, we are so much quicker to return favors and to pay our debts to mortals and we should be responsive and grateful. But what of Him who gave us mortal life itself, who will ere long give us all immortality, and who proffers to the faithful the greatest gift of all, eternal life We are poor bookkeepers, indeed.

Spent timelike a spent bullettells us much about its 'processor.' for we see not only the residual slug, but indicators of how spent time is grooved by a man's soul, a reliable indicator of what a man is like.

We must endure the contempt of others without reciprocating that contempt.

The great physician, Dr. Henry G. Armitage, Jr., states, 'Not without comment shall it come to pass that a state (so fretful for the preservation of the praying mantis but holding an unborn baby to be of no account) can send a spark of immortality swinging out into limbo and conspire with citizen and physician to turn a fragile, living object of simple innocence and complex wonder into a pathetic pulp and consign it by rude and peremptory passage to the furnace or sewer unknown, unwanted and undefended.' He further questions how a woman as 'the fertile adornment of our race can be deluded into the notion that she is a mere poetress of unwanted luggage or be by blandishment seduced into believing that she has dominion over life not her own.' He says, 'An abortion is never commonplace, for the world holds no heartbreak like the death of innocence.'

Some find it easier to bend their knees than their minds. Exciting exploration is preferred to plodding implementation speculation seems more fun than consecration, and so is trying to soften the hard doctrines instead of submitting to them. Worse still, by not obeying, these ... lack real knowing. Lacking real knowing, they cannot defend their faith and may become critics instead of defenders.

Defectors often cause more difficulty than disinterested disbelievers.

C. S. Lewis put it well when he gave us the analogy of remodeling the human soul and a living house 'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace.' (Mere Christianity New York Macmillan, 1960, p. 174.)

Patience helps us to view imperfections in others more generously to the end that we may learn to be more wise than they have been.

Ultimate hope constitutes the anchor of the soul.