“Evils Have Their Life and Limits…” – Sunday, October 21, 1951
There is an almost limitless list of things to worry about—a list that may somehow seem to have grown longer lately. Our problems sometimes seem to have multiplied, and also our perplexities. But perhaps people were always worried.
If they weren’t worried about the world, they were worried about themselves, their families, their business affairs, their health and future happiness. And yet despite all the causes of continuing worry, there are always some who seem to meet the realities of the present and to face the uncertainties of the future with calm composure.
There are always some who seemed to have learned, as Montaigne once wrote, that “Evils have their life and limits.” There is no known way of ridding ourselves of some reverses and of some uncertainties. But there is less or little room for fear, for unhappiness and hopelessness in the life of a man who has faith—faith in the fact that ultimately in the Lord’s own time and place and purpose there will come an inevitable understanding and justice and comfort and compensation—faith in the fact that we are children of an Eternal Father who is as earnestly anxious for us to weather our way through the experiences of this world even as we ourselves are anxious for our own children.
We may rest content that there is plan and purpose in our present period here, and we must meet all conditions that we inevitably encounter to the best of our ability. And whatever we have cause to complain of, we are not here to succumb but to conquer—to conquer ourselves and the problems that present themselves. We are not here to be at ease but to be earnestly engaged in a good cause.
We are not here to by-pass problems but to be about the business of learning to live life. There will always be things we don’t know that we don’t understand; there will always be conditions that could cause concern.
But we can rest assured that if we live life as well as we reasonably can under all conditions, and if we seize and accept truth wherever it is, the answers we so much seek we shall surely find, and the peace we so much pursue will surely sometime come.
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station K S L and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, October 21, 1951, 11:00 to 11:30 a.m., Eastern Time. Copyright, 1951
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October 21, 1951
Broadcast Number 1,157