Mormon Musings

A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast, the less he knows it. I find that doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans. A man's real belief is that which he lives by.  What a man believes is the thing that he does, not the thing that he thinks. George McDonald

When asked why Abraham was commanded to go to Mount Moriah and offer his only hope of posterity, President Hugh B. Brown, an Apostle, said, ‘Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham.’ The Lord already knew what Abraham would do, but Abraham didn’t know the depth of his own faith in God until he was actually stopped from making the sacrifice in the very act of performing it. It was then that Abraham realized how far he was willing to go in the service of his God. This was a growth lesson for Abraham.

If I have a fear, it is that the principle of sacrifice may be slipping away from us. This principle is a law of God. We are obliged to understand it and practice it. If being a member of this Church becomes too easy, testimonies will become shallow, and the roots of testimony will not go down into the soil of faith as they did with our pioneer forefathers.   Elder M. Russell Ballard

The real trouble about the duty of forgiveness is that you do it with all your might on Monday and then find on Wednesday that it hasn't stayed put and all has to be done over again.   C.S. Lewis  

A humorous but instructive account of an experience of Elder Matthew Cowley illustrates the spiritual power that accompanies an earnest expression of belief in and loyalty toward the Restoration, which of course began with the First Vision. "I was called on a mission.  And I will never forget the prayers of my father the day that I left...his last words to me at the railroad station [were], 'My boy, you will go out on that mission; you will study; you will try to prepare your sermons; and sometimes when you are called upon, you will think that you are wonderfully prepared, but when you stand up, your mind will go completely blank.' I have had that experience more than once.' Elder Cowley then asked his father what he should do in such instances.  His father replied, 'you stand up there and with all the fever of your soul, you bear witness that Joseph Smith was a prophet of the living God, and thoughts will flood into your mind and words to your mouth, to round out ...

How can we become the men and women--the Christlike servants--the Lord needs us to be?  How can we find answers to questions that perplex us? If Joseph Smith's transcendent experience in the Sacred Grove teaches us anything, it is that the heavens are open and that God speaks to His children.   The Prophet Joseph Smith set a pattern for us to follow in resolving our questions.  Drawn to the promise of James that if we lack wisdom we may ask of God, the boy Joseph took his question directly to Heavenly Father.  He sought personal revelation, and his seeking opened this last dispensation. In like manner, what will your seeking open for you?  What wisdom do you lack? What do you feel an urgent need to know or understand? Follow the example of the Prophet Joseph.  Find a quiet place where you can regularly go.  Humble yourself before God.  Pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father.  Turn to Him for answers and for comfort.   Pres...

From what we can draw from the Scriptures relative to the teaching of heaven, we are induced to think that much instruction has been given to man since the beginning which we do not possess now...We have what we have, and the Bible contains what it does contain: but to say that God never said anything more to man than is recorded, would be saying at once that we have at last received a revelation: for it must require one to advance thus far, because it is nowhere said in that volume by the mouth of God that He would not, after giving what is there contained, speak again; and if any man has found out for a fact that the Bible contains all that God ever revealed to man, he has ascertained it by an immediate revelation. Joseph Smith, Letter to The Church March 1834