solutions to daily challenges (Staheli)

“Personal, sincere, involvement in the scriptures produces faith, hope, and solutions to our daily challenges. Frequently reading, pondering, and applying the lessons of the scriptures, combined with prayer, become an irreplaceable part of gaining and sustaining a strong, vibrant testimony.” 

(Elder Donald L. Staheli, Ensign, Nov. 2004, 39)

trial of your faith (Andersen)

How do you remain “steadfast and immovable” (Alma 1:25) during a trial of faith? You immerse yourself in the very things that helped build your core of faith: you exercise faith in Christ, you pray, you ponder the scriptures, you repent, you keep the commandments, and you serve others.

When faced with a trial of faith—whatever you do, you don’t step away from the Church! Distancing yourself from the kingdom of God during a trial of faith is like leaving the safety of a secure storm cellar just as the tornado comes into view.

Elder Neal L. Andersen

http://www.lds.org/prophets-and-apostles/unto-all-the-world/trial-of-your-faith?lang=eng

The Caregiver (Eyring)

With all your differences in personal circumstances and past experiences, I can tell you something of what lies ahead for you. As you keep the faith, you will find yourself invited by the Lord often to serve someone in need when it will not seem convenient. It may appear to be an unpleasant and perhaps even impossible task. When the call comes, it may seem you are not needed or that someone else could easily give the succor.

Remember that when the Lord lets us encounter someone in distress, we honor the good Samaritan for what he did not do as much as for what he did. He did not pass by on the other side even though the beaten traveler on the road was a stranger and perhaps an enemy. He did what he could for the beaten man and then put in place a specific plan for others to do more. He did that because he understood that helping may require more than what one person can do.

Lessons in that story can guide you in whatever your future holds.

President Henry B. Eyring, October 2012 General Relief Society Meeting

a key to unlock revelation (Scott)

“Pondering a passage of scripture can be a key to unlock revelation and the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Ghost. Scriptures can calm an agitated soul, giving peace, hope, and a restoration of confidence in one’s ability to overcome the challenges of life….Scriptures can communicate different meanings at different times in our life, according to our needs.” 

-Elder Richard G. Scott (Ensign, Nov. 2011, 6)

the common law of life

“The tree that never had to fight

For sun and sky and air and light,

But stood out in the open plain

And always got its share of rain,

Never became a forest king

But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil to live,

Who never had to win his share

Of sun and sky and light and air,

Never became a manly man

But lived and died as he began.

“Good timber does not grow at ease,

The stronger wind, the stronger trees.

The further sky, the greater length,

The more the storm, the more the strength.

By sun and cold, in rain and snow,

in trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth

We find the patriarchs of both.

And they hold council with the stars

Whose broken branches show the scars

Of many winds and much of strife.

This is the common law of life.”

—Author unknown

the storm of life (Cook)

“We may not avoid every storm of life, but following the counsel of living prophets will help us ride out the storm.”

—Quentin L. Cook, “Members in Isolated City Radiate “Goodness, Dedication, Faith, and Love”“, Church News and Events, 6/26/2012

we were not sent here to fail (Maxwell)

When in situations of stress we wonder if there is any more in us to give, we can be comforted to know that God, who knows our capacity perfectly, placed us here to succeed. No one was foreordained to fail or to be wicked. When we have been weighed and found wanting, let us remember that we were measured before and we were found equal to our tasks; and, therefore, let us continue, but with a more determined discipleship. When we feel overwhelmed, let us recall the assurance that God will not overprogram us; he will not press upon us more than we can bear (D&C 50:40).

Neal A. Maxwell, BYU Speeches of the Year 1978, p. 156


http://speeches.byu.edu/index.php?act=viewitem&id=909

purified by fire (John Taylor)

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/purified-by-fire-john-taylor/

purified by fire (John Taylor)

http://jdquotes.wordpress.com/2012/07/26/purified-by-fire-john-taylor/

help for the journey (Holland)

To those who may feel they have somehow forfeited their place at the table of the Lord, we say again with the Prophet Joseph Smith that God has “a forgiving disposition,”  that Christ is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, [is] long-suffering and full of goodness.”  I have always loved that when Matthew records Jesus’ great injunction, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” Luke adds the Savior’s additional commentary: “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful” ¹⁹ —as if to suggest that mercy is at least a beginning synonym for the perfection God has and for which all of us must strive. Mercy, with its sister virtue forgiveness, is at the very heart of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the eternal plan of salvation. Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to, that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole, whatever the problems of the past.

Now, if you feel too spiritually maimed to come to the feast, please realize that the Church is not a monastery for perfect people, though all of us ought to be striving on the road to godliness. No, at least one aspect of the Church is more like a hospital or an aid station, provided for those who are ill and want to get well, where one can get an infusion of spiritual nutrition and a supply of sustaining water in order to keep on climbing.

In spite of life’s tribulations and as fearful as some of our prospects are, I testify that there is help for the journey. There is the Bread of Eternal Life and the Well of Living Water. Christ has overcome the world—our world—and His gift to us is peace now and exaltation in the world to come. ²⁰ Our fundamental requirement is to have faith in Him and follow Him—always. When He bids us to walk in His way and by His light, it is because He has walked this way before us, and He has made it safe for our own travel here. He knows where the sharp stones and stumbling blocks lie hidden and where thorns and thistles are the most severe. He knows where the path is perilous, and He knows which way to go when the road forks and nightfall comes. He knows all this, as Alma says in the Book of Mormon, because He has suffered “pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind … , that he may know … how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” ²¹ To succor means to “run to.” I testify that in my fears and in my infirmities the Savior has surely run to me. I will never be able to thank Him enough for such personal kindness and such loving care.

President George Q. Cannon said once: “No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is [against] His character [to do so]. He is an unchangeable being. … He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and the purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments.”

Those who will receive the Lord Jesus Christ as the source of their salvation will always lie down in green pastures, no matter how barren and bleak the winter has been. And the waters of their refreshment will always be still waters, no matter how turbulent the storms of life. In walking His path of righteousness, our souls will be forever restored; and though that path may for us, as it did for Him, lead through the very valley of the shadow of death, yet we will fear no evil. The rod of His priesthood and the staff of His Spirit will always comfort us. And when we hunger and thirst in the effort, He will prepare a veritable feast before us, a table spread even in the presence of our enemies—contemporary enemies—which might include fear or family worries, sickness or personal sorrow of a hundred different kinds. In a crowning act of compassion at such a supper He anoints our head with oil and administers a blessing of strength to our soul. Our cup runneth over with His kindness, and our tears runneth over with joy. We weep to know that such goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our life, and that we will, if we desire it, dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, October 1997 General Conference 


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