Mormon Musings

Whenever you and I witness and experience in a human being impressive loving-kindness, we marvel—and we should marvel.  But such highly developed loving-kindness is still not closely comparable to Jesus’ loving-kindness.  So it is with each of His qualities about which I have spoken…When we are fortunate enough to experience the stirring samples of likeness, these are real and wonderful experiences, but they are not yet fullness.  They are not the fullness found in Jesus.  Even so, He of fullness clearly and kindly beckons us to develop that greater likeness in our lives which precedes fullness.  It is that likeness that will give us the light in our lives so that we might, as Paul says, shine as lights in the world.  These are the attributes that convey us to the added authority of example.  And as we emulate Him, by developing likeness in these attributes, He will bless and magnify us for His purposes.   Elder Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Devoti...

Wilford Woodruff had a clear vision of life and was faithful to it. He once said: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Not much. What will a man give in exchange for his soul, when he gets on the other side of the veil? I marvel very much at the little interest manifested by the inhabitants of the earth generally in their future state. There is not a person here today but what is going to live on the other side of the veil as long as his Creator--to the endless ages of eternity, and the eternal destiny of every individual depends upon the manner in which the few short years of the life in the flesh are spent. I ask, in the name of the Lord, what is popularity to you or me? What is gold or silver, or this world’s goods to any of us, any further than to enable us to obtain what we need to eat, drink, and wear, and to build up the kingdom of God. And for us to stop praying, and to become crazy after the riches of the world, is the very height of fooli...

Now, brethren and sisters, what hinders you from enjoying all you anticipated [when you prepared to accept the Gospel and join the Church]? The calm reflections of your own minds, and the conclusions of a well balanced judgment, enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord, will give you a correct answer to this question. I can answer it for myself, and perhaps for many of you. If I do not enjoy all I anticipated, if my happiness is not as complete as I anticipated, if the light of the Holy Spirit is not in my heart to that degree which I expected it would be, if I have not obtained all I anticipated when I was down in yonder world, mingled with the wicked, the cause is in myself, in my own heart, in my own disposition, in the weakness of human nature; it is my own will that prevents me from enjoying all I anticipated, and more. It is a mistaken idea to suppose that others can prevent me from enjoying the light of God in my soul; all hell cannot hinder me from enjoying Zion in my own heart, ...