The Warning Signs and Symptoms – January 24, 1960
Often we become so busy in life that we ignore the symptoms and the warning signs in many matters. Under the pressures of a complex living pattern, we sometimes become so intent on the next place we have to be, on the next thing we have to do, that we fail to follow impressions. Parents, for example, sometimes become so busy with other obligations and interests that they fail to see, or, if they see, fail fully to sense the first signs of changes in their children—changes of attitude, of affection, of interest and activity changes in the company they keep. These may be for better, or may not be for better, but at least parents should pause and look and sense and see—should watch the warning signs—should watch the symptoms.
Patiently and prayerfully, as they live for it, parents are entitled to a kind of wisdom, to a kind of guidance, to a discerning sense concerning their children. And by love, and by wise and patient counsel, parents can sometimes save their children from making mistakes, from hazards and heartaches; can sometimes keep them from cluttering their lives, from marring their records, from turning down wrong roads—by watching early signs and symptoms, not too obviously, not too intrusively, but with an earnest, prayerful sense of the need for foresight, and for the power of prevention.
Often people may have impressions in other ways also, of things they should or shouldn’t do—a kind of still small voice seeming to talk inside something we might call conscience, or something even beyond what might be called conscience. And in matters of principle, in matters of inherent right or wrong, seldom would it seem that anyone could honestly say that he was utterly and altogether unaware of any sense of warning, of any sense that he was doing or considering something be shouldn’t do. Call them what we will, it seems that we could often have occasion to regret the ignoring of impressions that seem to want to save us from the making of mistakes.
Intelligently, gratefully, earnestly, we should watch the warning signs; we should watch the symptoms, and pay more prayerful, purposeful attention to the power of prevention.*
*Revised
“The Spoken Word,” heard over Radio Station KSL and the CBS Radio Network, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, January 24, 1960, 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon, Eastern Time. Copyright 1960
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January 24, 1960
Broadcast Number 1,588