Mormon Musings

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Letting off steam always produces more heat than light.  (See Matthew 18:15) Neal A. Maxwell, Ensign, November 1989, p. 84 It is customary, even understandable, when we read of God's indignation and anger to think of it in terms of an angry mortal father and not ponder it much more.  Some even mutter about Old Testament "tribalism," mistakenly thinking of God as being personally piqued or offended at some act of wickedness or stupidity because He has told us to behave otherwise.  This is erroneous, bumper-sticker theology.   Simply because we are, so often, angry at a wrong done to us, we assume the same about God's anger.   Neal A. Maxwell, "Sermons Not Spoken," p. 83

"Brothers and sisters, whatever your distress,  please  don't give up and  please  don't yield to fear. I have always been touched that as his son was departing for his mission to England, Brother Bryant S. Hinckley gave young Gordon a farewell embrace and then slipped him a handwritten note with just five words taken from the fifth chapter of Mark: 'Be not afraid, only believe.'(Mark 5:36 ).  I think also of that night when Christ rushed to the aid of His frightened disciples, walking as He did on the water to get to them, calling out, 'It is I; be not afraid.' Peter exclaimed, 'Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.' Christ's answer to him was as it  always  is  every  time: ' Come,'  He said. Instantly, as was his nature, Peter sprang over the vessel's side and into the troubled waters.  While his eyes were fixed upon the Lord, the wind could toss his hair and the spray could drench his robes, but all was well—h...

"In the short speech of not more than five minutes, which I delivered in the old Bowery, when that judge publicly insulted this people, there were men and women in the congregation who suffered more in the anticipation of what might be the result of it in the future, than the generality this people suffered in being actually mobbed.  They could see, in imagination, all hell let loose upon us, themselves strung up, their ears cut off, their bowels torn out and this whole people cut to pieces.   After they had time to think, they found themselves still alive and unhurt, to their great astonishment.  They suffered as much as though they had been sent to the bottomless pit...I know this people have suffered more by the contemplation of trouble, than they have when actually passing through it...People suffer more in the anticipation of death than in death itself. " Brigham Young, February 20, 1853 (Journal of Discourses Volume 1) " I, even I, am he that comforteth you: ...