I read this article today about becoming better a little at a time in the New Year, and wanted to share with all of you. Here's to a great year for each of you!
You Can Change
Friday, January 6, 2017
Tuesday, July 12, 2016
The War Chapters of the Book of Mormon and Their Relevance Today....
I stumbled across this talk today and wanted to share it. I've always struggled to get through the "war chapters" of the Book of Mormon, mostly because they are full of the terrible atrocities and complexities of war and I've always thought "why spend SO much time on this in a book of Scripture?" (I especially think this as we're reading aloud to our small children--such tough things to hear and understand for them!)
Well, today I have greater insight after reading this talk. I know that everyone is in the midst of busy lives right now and reading the family blog probably isn't paramount on your "to do" list, but I still wanted to share this talk as I found it so interesting and relevant.
Enjoy!
Peace Within
Well, today I have greater insight after reading this talk. I know that everyone is in the midst of busy lives right now and reading the family blog probably isn't paramount on your "to do" list, but I still wanted to share this talk as I found it so interesting and relevant.
Enjoy!
Peace Within
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Watchman, Warn the Wicked....
A friend shared this talk with me today, and it is AMAZING! I have been reading various talks by President Ezra Taft Benson on Liberty and the Constitution for the last couple of days....he has many great ones, but I found this talk just full of "wow" power!! There are so many incredible insights, particularly his comparison of the downfall of the Roman Empire to our society "today"...well, he gave this talk in the 70's, so he must be "rolling in his grave" now over our nation's awful state!
I'd love to hear your comments/insights on the talk if you care to share.
Watchman, Warn the Wicked, President Benson
I'd love to hear your comments/insights on the talk if you care to share.
Watchman, Warn the Wicked, President Benson
Tuesday, May 3, 2016
I came across a letter that was written by Hugh B Brown, in 1947. It was remarkable in the frank way that he counseled a friend who was having a "Chris of Faith" by relating some very personal insights. It is long but I found it really fascinating and incredibly comforting.......
November 8, 1946
My
dear—-:
I was
really glad to get your letter of October 25, and I appreciate your confidence.
The revelation of your mental and spiritual struggles does not come as a
surprise, as I had felt for some time that the waters of your usually placid
soul had become somewhat roiled and disturbed.
Would
you be surprised if I should tell you that I, too, have had periods of
perplexity, uncertainty, and doubt; that I, too, have known the darkness,
fogginess, and chill of the valley which lies between illuminated peaks of faith
and confidence, and that only the memory of the hilltops along the road over
which I have come coupled with the somewhat misty vision of others still ahead
has given me the courage to plod on when I was tempted to “chuck it all,” to
wrap myself in the comfortless blanket of doubt and self-commiseration and just
quit the field. Well I have had that experience. But this I can say positively,
that each peak which I have climbed has seemed higher and more inspiring than
the last, due at least in part, I think, to the dark background of the valley
through which I came. Sharp contrasts are sometimes most revealing.
In view
of the above admission, you will not expect an argument or a brief on faith in
God and immortality. However, and I hope it may be so, a relating of some
personal experiences and observations may give you a fellow-feeling and bring
comfort, courage, hope, and faith, may renew in you the spirit of adventure, of
zest for the quest of truth.
First, I
have found that periods of doubt and skepticism, of negative reactions and
disbelief have always been characterized by darkness, refrigeration of spirit,
pettiness, cynicism, and general misery, even to a point of wishing for
oblivion. Whereas, periods of faith, hope, and positive reactions have been times
of buoyancy and cheerfulness filled with a desire to be and to become, to lift
and encourage, and to point with confidence to something even more about to be.
Here, life had cadence and lilt and zest and value, and I gloried in the
thought that I could extend these benefits and joys and possibilities to my
children.
From the
selfish standpoint of personal satisfaction then, I have chosen to swim in the
clear, cool stream of faith rather than wallow in the turbid, enervating,
stagnant swamp of doubt and cynicism. In other words, faith pays dividends of
joy as we go along.
I like
Fosdick’s definition of faith: “Faith is vision to believe what as yet one
cannot demonstrate and valor to act on the basis of that insight.”
At times
I have had to take myself in hand and command my knees to bend, my head to bow,
my spirit to become contrite. But of this I bear witness, that I have beheld
more distant vistas when on my knees than when standing upright. Somehow the
bending of the knee has seemed to open the shutters of the soul and to bring
the lens of faith into focus.
Many
more before you and I have wondered if praying were not merely a soliloquy and
its only answer the echo of its sound. On the other hand, however, prayer has
been a vital principle–the central faith of millions of noble men and women.
The fact that it has been an age-long rapture certainly attests its value–it
endures. It’s faithfully recurrent like the sunrise. It’s not a private vagary
nor is it mere wishful thinking or rationalizations. I have come through my own
experiences with the conviction that prayer is comradeship with God; indeed, I
doubt if I could have endured some recent experiences if I had not had that
refuge.
As to
whether there is in fact a God, I shall not argue. But I, like you, have looked
about me and seen the myriad evidence of plan and purpose and design and have
chided myself for ever doubting the existence of the Designer.
I am
told, and there seems to be ample evidence to support it, that matter is
indestructible, that it is eternal. As a youth, if I had been told by my
teacher in school that the desk on which I wrote was indestructible, and then
when the schoolhouse burned had seen the mocking ashes where my desk had been,
I doubtless would have lost faith in my teacher. Clearly, and before me, was
the evidence of his folly. But later in High School and University, where in
the laboratory, I learned how to catch and weigh the gases, oils, and ashes
that resulted from burning wood and found that the process of burning had not
in fact destroyed anything, I concluded that my youthful skepticism was but
evidence of the narrow limits of my knowledge. From then on, humility bade me
hesitate before questioning the truths which witnesses of research and
observation had established. My questing soul still questions, but my questions
had to do with ways and means of deciphering and getting at the truth and
finding the relationship between observation and intuition, between knowledge
and faith.
There
are many things I cannot explain, there are many things I cannot understand,
but of this one thing I am positively sure, that God does live, that death will
not end my conscious existence. I cannot bring myself to believe that while my
desk, mere inanimate matter as it is, is indestructible, that far more
valuable, in fact the most valuable thing I know, human personality and love,
is but transitory and temporary and must be destroyed and come to an end when I
cease to react physically to my surroundings in this world.
The
little logic I have mastered, what little knowledge I have gained forbids me to
accept the hypothesis that individuality will entirely be wiped out.
Just why
God does not move closer to me or enable me to come closer to him, that through
my physical senses I may apprehend him, I do not know. But this I know, He has
so tuned my spirit that I am sensitive to and respond when certain impulses
emanate from Him.
I assume
that if the unborn babe could speak, he would rebel at the prospect of birth;
he would say, “I cannot live if you take me out of my present environment
beneath my mother’s heart. My life is so definitely a part of her life that if
you separate us I am sure I will die and cease to be.” And yet, that babe, when
born, finds himself in an environment suited to his undeveloped organs and
functions. He finds that someone has made provision for his coming, that there
is water and food and air to satisfy his stomach and lungs which, though
present, were not needed in his pre-natal state.
I wonder
if when we die, we are in fact just born into another sphere. Personally, I am
quite content to leave the outcome with the same good God who made provisions
for my coming here, and personally I believe that I might have certain
spiritual organs which will function fully only when I am born into an
environment suited to them.
Well,
this letter is already much too long. I promised at the beginning that I would
not argue, and yet I fear that I have verged at least onto the edge of
argument. I want you to know, my dear son and brother, that I am intensely
interested in your future. I believe that the violent attacks that have been
made on your faith, upon your reasoning powers, upon the hope you have held in
the past were made as a test. I firmly believe that you have an unusual future,
and that because of your possibilities, the Adversary, and I think there is an
Adversary, is making a determined attack upon you. I know you too well to feel
that you will give up and quit the field while that attack is on. I counsel you
to assume the positive attitude in your talks to others, that you undertake to
convince them of the reality of the things in which you have believed, that you
search for evidence to support that faith, and I think you will be surprised to
find that there is far more evidence in support of faith than can be marshalled
to support the negative side.
I look
forward to the time when we can visit again, and hope it may be possible to get
together often, as I have appreciated your comradeship and association in the
past. My love to your wife and baby and to you, and may God bless you to see
through the fog and glimpse the sunshine.
Sincerely
your friend and brother,
Hugh B.
Brown
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