Mormon Musings

Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him. If He simply wanted us to be obedient, He would use immediate rewards and punishments to influence our behaviors. But God is not interested in His children just becoming trained and obedient “pets” who will not chew on His slippers in the celestial living room. No, God wants His children to grow up spiritually and join Him in the family business.... Lucifer is this accuser. He spoke against us in the premortal existence, and he continues to denounce us in this life. He seeks to drag us down. He wants us to experience endless woe. He is the one who tells us we are not adequate, the one who tells us we are not good enough, the one who tells us there is no recovery from a mistake. He is the ultimate bully, the one who kicks us when we are down. If Lucifer were teaching a child to walk and the child stumbled, he w...

"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done." All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. Those who knock it is opened.”  ―  C.S. Lewis ,  The Great Divorce

Perhaps, brothers and sisters, what we brought with us as intelligences into our creation as spirit children constitutes a “given” within which even God must work. Add to that possibility the clear reality of God’s deep commitment to our free agency—and we begin to see how essential meekness is! We need to learn so much, and yet we are free to choose (see 2 Nephi 2:27)! How crucial it is to be teachable! There “is no other way” in which God could do what He has declared it is His intent to do. No wonder He and His prophets emphasize meekness time and time again! Since God desired to have us become like Himself, He first had to make us free, to learn, to choose, and to experience; hence our humility and teachability are premiere determinants of our progress and our happiness. Agency is essential to perfectibility, and meekness is essential to the wise use of agency—and to our recovery when we have misused our agency. Let us not brush by this developmental premise. The scripture...

 30 And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are free; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a knowledge and he hath made you free.  31 He hath given unto you that ye might know good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might choose life or death; and ye can do good and be restored unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you. Helaman 14:30-31

“Our leisure, even our play, is a matter of serious concern. There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.” C.S. Lewis

"Tell me what amusements you like best and whether your amusements have become a ruling passion in your life, and I will tell you what you are." Joseph F. Smith 

Aristotle said, “For what it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.” Aristotle,  Nicomachean Ethics,  book 3, chapter 5.

"Man was also in the beginning with God.  Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.  All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence." D&C 93:29-30

...men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man.  And they are free to chose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to chose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. 2 Nephi 2:27

"Free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having."  Source: “Mere Christianity” (1952) 

  30  And now remember, remember, my brethren, that whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto  himself ; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself; for behold, ye are  free ; ye are permitted to act for yourselves; for behold, God hath given unto you a  knowledge  and he hath made you free.   31  He hath given unto you that ye might  know  good from evil, and he hath given unto you that ye might  choose  life or death; and ye can do good and be  restored  unto that which is good, or have that which is good restored unto you; or ye can do evil, and have that which is evil restored unto you. Helaman 14:30

Some seek to brush aside conscience, refusing to hear its voice.  But that deflection is, in itself, an act of choice.  Like it or not, therefore, reality requires that we acknowledge our responsibility for our desires. Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, November 1996, p. 21

Many are disposed through their own wickedness "to do as I damned please"--and they are damned. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 11:254

In 1979 a large passenger jet with 257 people on board left New Zealand for a sightseeing flight to Antarctica and back. Unknown to the pilots, however, someone had modified the flight coordinates by a mere two degrees. This error placed the aircraft 28 miles (45 km) to the east of where the pilots assumed they were. As they approached Antarctica, the pilots descended to a lower altitude to give the passengers a better look at the landscape. Although both were experienced pilots, neither had made this particular flight before, and they had no way of knowing that the incorrect coordinates had placed them directly in the path of Mount Erebus, an active volcano that rises from the frozen landscape to a height of more than 12,000 feet (3,700 m). As the pilots flew onward, the white of the snow and ice covering the volcano blended with the white of the clouds above, making it appear as though they were flying over flat ground. By the time the instruments sounded the warning that the groun...

Our submission to God is not simply a question of duty or obligation. The blessings that flow from welcoming God's rule in our lives are so enticing, and the alternative so appalling, that if we see things in their true light, we cannot be kept from walking in wisdom's paths. Among the greatest of the blessings that come from yielding to His will, though it seems ironic to some, is freedom. Let me explain. First, we must recognize that there are only two options available to us, two paths. Alma put it this way: Behold, I say unto you, that the good shepherd doth call you; yea, and in his own name he doth call you, which is the name of Christ; and if ye will not hearken unto the voice of the good shepherd, to the name by which ye are called, behold, ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd. And now if ye are not the sheep of the good shepherd, of what fold are ye? Behold, I say unto you, that the devil is your shepherd, and ye are of his fold; and now, who can deny this?  [Al...

Chemists who are familiar with analyzing matter, inform you that the globe we inhabit is composed of small particles, so small that they cannot be seen with the unaided natural eye, and that one of these small particles may be divided into millions of parts, each part so minute as to be indiscernible by the aid of the finest microscopes.  So the walk of man is made up of acts performed from day to day.  It is the aggregate of the acts which I perform through life that makes up the conduct that will be exhibited in the day of judgment, and when the books are opened, there will be the life which I have lived for me to look upon, and there also will be the acts of your lives to look upon.  Do you not know that the building up of the Kingdom of God, the gathering of Israel, is to be done by little acts?  You breathe one breath at a time; each moment is set apart to its act, and each act to its moment.  It is the moments and the little acts that make the sum of the l...

"When we came into this world, we brought with us from our heavenly home this God-given gift and privilege which we call our agency. It gives us the right and power to make decisions and to choose. Agency is an eternal law. President Brigham Young, speaking of our agency, taught: 'This is a law which has always existed from all eternity, and will continue to exist throughout all the eternities to come. Every intelligent being must have the power of choice'  (Deseret News, Oct. 10, 1866, 355)." Paul H. Wolfgang ,  "The Gift of Agency," Ensign, May 2006, 34-35

We  become  what we want to  be  by consistently  being  what we want to  become  each day.  Righteous character is a precious manifestation of what you are becoming. Righteous character is more valuable than any material object you own, any knowledge you have gained through study, or any goals you have attained no matter how well lauded by mankind. In the next life your righteous character will be evaluated to assess how well you used the privilege of mortality. Elder Richard G. Scott, October 2010 General Conference

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...