Mormon Musings

 "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

 “What are you actually and specifically deprived of by serious gospel living?” Ponder these several examples. By complying with the revealed Word of Wisdom, you are much more likely to be deprived of lung cancer, and surely deprived of becoming an alcoholic. You are much more likely to miss out on AIDS if you keep the seventh commandment and refuse to use drugs. Before you die, my young brothers and sisters, you will thank Heavenly Father many times for the advantages of abstinence! Regarding certain destructive things, abstinence is so much easier than moderation! Meanwhile, you will see those about you who are surfing life’s pleasures indulgently. They will eventually crash against the reefs of reality. By responding to the strong gospel emphasis on education, you will also be deprived of being ignorant. You will be deprived of that large dose of human despair that “cometh because of iniquity” (Moroni 10:22). You will also miss out on the exhausting and finally futile calistheni...

God’s ways of educating our desires are, of course, always the most perfect. . . . And what is God’s way? Everywhere in nature we are taught the lessons of patience and waiting. We want things a long time before we get them, and the fact that we wanted them a long time makes them all the more precious when they come. In nature we have our seedtime and harvest; and if children were taught that the desires that they sow may be reaped by and by through patience and labor, they will learn to appreciate whenever a long-looked-for goal has been reached. Nature resists us and keeps admonishing us to wait; indeed, we are compelled to wait.   Joseph F. Smith

When the Latter-day Saints make up their minds to endure, for the kingdom of God’s sake, whatsoever shall come, whether poverty or riches, whether sickness or to be driven by mobs, they will say it is all right, and [they] will honor the hand of the Lord in it, and in all things, and serve Him to the end of their lives, according to the best of their ability. . . . If you have not made up your minds for this, the quicker you do so the better. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 1:338

 

 “If conscience disapproves, the loudest applauses of the world are of little value.”  John Adams

"[A]s President Gordon B. Hinckley taught, 'Fear is the antithesis [the complete opposite] of faith.' This is evident from the scriptures themselves. The scriptures define faith as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,' 'which are true.' Faith is a real manifestation of what is really true. The polar opposite of that would seem to be the lack of substance or evidence of things that are false—or false evidence appearing real: fear. We need to recognize that the feeling of despair and hopelessness that characterizes irrational fear is a tool of the adversary. Indeed, it is one of his primary tools. I am convinced that just as we have articles of faith, Satan and his minions must have articles of fear to aid them in their work. They might read something like this: 'We believe that the first principles of despair and damnation are doubt God, doubt yourself, doubt others, and, most of all, be afraid—be very afraid of the future...