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As a reminder to myself of what matters more: Quote:Maxwell, Neal A. (1988), Not My Will, But Thine, Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, p. 26, “Jacob censured the “stiffnecked” Jews for “looking beyond the mark” (Jacob 4:14). We are looking beyond the mark today, for example, if we are more interested in the physical dimensions of the cross than in what Jesus achieved thereon; or when we neglect Alma’s words on faith because we are too fascinated by the light-shielding hat reportedly used by Joseph Smith during some of the translating of the Book of Mormon. To neglect substance while focusing on process is another form of unsubmissively looking beyond the mark.”
I’m aware that I spend too much time on the ‘dimensions of the cross and the head in the hat.’
mackay – Not My Will is one of my all time favorite books. Every so often I need to discard some books to add in new ones, I don’t let that one go. It’s funny now reading the quote that I didn’t catch the Joseph and the hat reference at all – just buzzed right past it. So caught up in the message I was seeking for as I read the book. Now today I find myself combing and dissecting things, looking for every trip wire. I just did it today at lunch.
I was eating and looking out at my gorgeous spring yard, and the song “Jesus Once Was a Little Child” popped into my mind. I don’t know why I am totally disconnected from primary and have been for years. But anyway I’m humming the song the words are in my head – and I stop and abruptly have a conversation with myself about the song. I start batting around questions like, “How do we know what he was like?” “We only have one story about his childhood and it isn’t very obedient. I mean seriously he leaves his parents, worries them sick, and doesn’t even say sorry.”
On I go. Before I know it I’m down the rabbit hole, twenty feet deep. Gone was the joy that I had been feeling when I was eating my lunch. Gone was any uplift from the sensation that had pulled up the song. Gone was any lesson for good that might have been lurking in the unexpected moment. All because I was curious how much the cross weighed.
Your quote was perfect for me today. Thanks.
This isn’t exactly the kind of quote this thread is looking for, but I think it fits in with the issues/struggles/angst that people on this board deal with – in a funny way. I overheard a primary class one day where the teacher asked the kids what it means to worship. A very precocious six-year-old boy in our ward answered, “A worship is a battleship.”
Wise beyond his years?
:think: Insomniac – I love it. I am adding it to my favorite primary quotes. My all time favorite came from the primary program in our ward. A nice young man got up and proudly said into the microphone, “For God so love the world that he gave his only forgottenson.” A worship works perfect right along side the forgotten son. There’s a quote from Joseph somewhere about God being more generous or compassionate than we can conceive. Anyone know the one I’d talking about? mackay11 wrote:There’s a quote from Joseph somewhere about God being more generous or compassionate than we can conceive. Anyone know the one I’d talking about?
Our heavenly father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and at the same time more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be.
I don’t have a reference, and maybe it’s not accurate. Taken as a whole, and against the backdrop of polygamy, etc., not so useful for me….
Thanks Ann, after a bit of googling here is the first half in an official church source: Quote:
“Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive…”
Joseph Smith
Quoted by Jeffrey R. Holland in General Conference Oct 2003
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2003/10/the-grandeur-of-god?lang=eng He in turn was quoting:
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (1976), 257, 240–41.
OK… so these are not going to be useful for a Sunday School lesson (and I know that was the original intent of the thread!). But I actually found these as useful reasons for me to give more space and respect to TBMs and other faiths:
Quote:
“The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is follyteaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
“I would not interfere with any one’s religion, either to strengthen it
or to weaken it. I am not able to believe one’s religion can affect his
hereafter one way or the other, no matter what that religion may be.
But it may easily be a great comfort to him in this life — hence it is a
valuable possession to him.”
“I do not see how eternal punishment hereafter could accomplish any good
end, therefore I am not able to believe in it. To chasten a man in order
to perfect him might be reasonable enough; to annihilate him when he shall
have proved himself incapable of reaching perfection mught be reasonable
enough; but to roast him forever for the mere satisfaction of seeing him
roast would not be reasonable — even the atrocious God imagined by the Jews
would tire of the spectacle eventually.”
— Mark Twain
Sorry if I’ve used this before (I’m losing track): Quote:… If someone can find something in the Book of Mormon, anything that they love or respond to or find dear, I applaud that and say more power to you. That’s what I find, too. And that should not in any way discount somebody’s liking a passage here or a passage there or the whole idea of the book, but not agreeing to its origin, its divinity. …
I think you’d be as aware as I am that that we have many people who are members of the church who do not have some burning conviction as to its origins, who have some other feeling about it that is not as committed to foundational statements and the premises of Mormonism. But we’re not going to invite somebody out of the church over that any more than we would anything else about degrees of belief or steps of hope or steps of conviction. … We would say: “This is the way I see it, and this is the faith I have; this is the foundation on which I’m going forward. If I can help you work toward that I’d be glad to, but I don’t love you less; I don’t distance you more; I don’t say you’re unacceptable to me as a person or even as a Latter-day Saint if you can’t make that step or move to the beat of that drum.” … We really don’t want to sound smug. We don’t want to seem uncompromising and insensitive.
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/interviews/holland.html#1 EDIT: Sorry, just noticed this was already used on the first page or two. Oh well, worth reposting. I’ll need to work out a better structure soon.
Hopefully you’ll all be able to find a few more from conference. But these are a must: Quote:
His initial declaration is affirmative and without hesitation: “Lord, I believe.” I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited.
So be kind regarding human frailty—your own as well as that of those who serve with you in a Church led by volunteer, mortal men and women. Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we… when the infinite fulness is poured forth, it is not the oil’s fault if there is some loss because finite vessels can’t quite contain it all. Those finite vessels include you and me, so be patient and kind and forgiving.
A 14-year-old boy recently said to me a little hesitantly, “Brother Holland, I can’t say yet that I know the Church is true, but I believe it is.” I hugged that boy until his eyes bulged out. I told him with all the fervor of my soul that belief is a precious word, an even more precious act, and he need never apologize for “only believing.”
Hope on. Journey on. Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe.
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/lord-i-believe?lang=eng Especially for Ray: Quote:
In the great Composer’s symphony, you have your own particular part to play—your own notes to sing.
Elder Uchtdorf April 2013 (Priesthood Session)
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/four-titles?lang=eng I’d never heard this one before… but I like it: Quote:“Perhaps the Lord needs such men on the outside of His Church to help it along… They are among its auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else. … Hence, some are drawn into the fold and receive a testimony of the truth; while others remain unconverted … the beauties and glories of the gospel being veiled temporarily from their view, for a wise purpose. The Lord will open their eyes in His own due time.
God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people.
Elder Orson F. Whitney of the Quorum of the TwelveQuoted by President Ezra Taft Benson in 1972:
https://www.lds.org/ensign/1972/07/civic-standards-for-the-faithful-saints?lang=eng And more recently here on the church interfaith page:
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/interfaith While googling it I’ve just realised a part of it was also used in the ‘How to stay’ article on our very own website:
This is a good one from B.H. Roberts: Quote:“While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is established for the instruction of men; and it is one of God’s instrumentalities for making known the truth yet he is not limited to that institution for such purposes, neither in time nor place. God raises up wise men and prophets here and there among all the children of men, of their own tongue and nationality, speaking to them through means that they can comprehend. … All the great teachers are servants of God; among all nations and in all ages. They are inspired men, appointed to instruct God’s children according to the conditions in the midst of which he finds them.”
http://www.lds.org/ensign/2000/08/a-latter-day-saint-perspective-on-muhammad?lang=eng I feel like I repeat myself again and again – I love this thread. I love today’s additions to it. As part of my spiritual growth I try to read spiritual words everyday. Sometimes it’s a scripture or passage in scriptures, sometimes a book or work by a spiritual leader, or a hymn. These quotes become added to that. They are always uplifting to me and support my vision of a gospel filled life. Thanks Mackay – since you are the major creator and contributor. I love the most recent additions. mom3 wrote:I feel like I repeat myself again and again – I love this thread. I love today’s additions to it. As part of my spiritual growth I try to read spiritual words everyday. Sometimes it’s a scripture or passage in scriptures, sometimes a book or work by a spiritual leader, or a hymn. These quotes become added to that. They are always uplifting to me and support my vision of a gospel filled life. Thanks Mackay – since you are the major creator and contributor. I love the most recent additions.
Thanks again. I started it because I’m forever reading and forgetting good quote like these.
When I read things like these quotes I think ‘these are people I’m happy accepting as spiritual leaders’
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