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We are all creatures of our God and King, and this is the right time of year to acknowledge it. It's time to give thanks for the good things of life...to resolve to become more worthy recipients...to examine priorities and objectives...to resolve problems and improve personal circumstances.
Observers may look at the life of Christ and call it a failed mission—a gift given to humanity and left, unwrapped, forgotten under the Christmas tree. His gift was so homely, after all. We like our gifts with glitter and pomp—a promise of easy days, and He gave something far different.
When Thomas Carlyle, the British essayist and philosopher, looked into the heavens, he saw more than stars. He saw hope. "When I gaze into the stars," he wrote, "they look down upon me with pity from their serene and silent spaces....Thousands of generations...have been swallowed up by time, and there remains no sign of them anymore. Yet Arcturus and Orion...are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the shepherd first noted them."
There was a time when a man knew his neighbors, when all the people in a village or hamlet were called by their first names; a time when births and deaths, sickness and good fortune were passed from mouth to mouth, house to house, until all reveled in the joy or grieved in the sadness. […]
There may be more peace and tranquility in the world than history or headlines would lead us to believe. Whenever a volcano erupts or a storm blows or an earthquake shake, we stand in awe and fear at the destructive power, force, or energy that descends quietly upon us with every rising sun. The life-giving […]
Historians have long debated whether great men and women create great times or are the product of the times in which they live. Perhaps all of us have asked ourselves, "Do we shape the world we live in or are we shaped by it?"
If there is one crowning achievement in the collective history of mankind—one overshadowing accomplishment from among the aggregate of human discoveries and advances, it is perhaps man's ability to read. Through that seemingly simple act, one can exchange thoughts and feelings, or transmit experience and learning from one generation to another.
The reporters said Spencer W. Kimball, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, died, but we know he lives. Literally, as a part of God's eternal plan, his life's eternal. But his influence still lives among we who are earthbound.
In 1775, during the Second Revolutionary Convention in Virginia, a Virginia farmer rose to tell his countrymen, "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."1
"Share all of life's joy and be rarely alone, for exile is empty, a harp without tone."1 These words by John Colman remind us that we are at our best and happiest when we are with someone else, particularly those we love.
Recently a little girl played on the swings of a city park. Her parents sat on a bench a short distance away and watched. Each time the swing reached the apex of its backward arc, the girl threw her body back, pulled with her arms at the chains that supported the swing, pumped with her legs, and forced the swing to return forward, higher still.
The scriptures say, "Men are that they might have joy,"1 and we are left asking ourselves, if that is truly the intent, why is the earth a place of so much pain? It must groan under the weight of human sorrow. We run sometimes without meaning and die before we intend. We scramble for bread to fill us and, filled, worry if we will have enough tomorrow. Weeds grow in our grass, disease cripples us, disappointment dashes us; and, through it all, we question if something, somewhere, has gone terribly wrong.
As long as language survives and men's hearts are pure, the Sermon on the Mount will be rehearsed with reverence; For, within that short expression, lie the hope and glory of mankind. Across the boundaries of time and geography, the words still whisper their message of hope and consolation.
Those who enjoy life know and understand that life is a process, not a destination. It's filled with peaks and valleys, high and lows, good and bad. For some, like the Apostle Paul, the struggle is often intense and dramatic. For most of us, the struggle is simply coping with the problems of daily living.
It is an unwritten law that excess is dangerous. And, in a democracy such as the United States, where good fortune and technology have combined to produce prosperity for the majority of the people, excess is especially prevalent.
“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them,”1 according to William Shakespeare. That may be true. But what is greatness?
The world is not so complicated as many people believe. Yes complication is easy to find, All one has to do is look at our cities, our technologies, our sciences, even our arts; and what one finds is so complex that a specialized education is required to understand it.
Rudyard Kipling, in a poem titled simply, “If,” investigates the many attributes of maturity. Among the attributes he discovers, one recurs in several forms: the courage to take risks— not the risks of the gambling hall, but of the life lived faithfully and well.
Rudyard Kipling, in a poem titled simply, “If,” investigates the many attributes of maturity. Among the attributes he discovers, one recurs in several forms: the courage to take risks— not the risks of the gambling hall, but of the life lived faithfully and well.
The Savior gave a telling parable when He asked, "What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness and go after that which is lost until he find it?"1
Freedom and Power are two of life's more valuable possessions. To be of greatest value both must accompanied with responsibility. But like anything else, they too can be abused and misused.
Call it what you will: Persistence, Tenacity, Resolution, or Perseverance; it is still the quaint old principle of getting back on the horse that has thrown you-again and again. It is a simple faith in ourselves that, if we want something badly enough, we can achieve it—not without persistence, not without work and struggle and sacrifice—but that it can be done.
1985 marks the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II: in May of 1945 peace came to Europe; in September of the same year the war ended in the Pacific. And so, today a brief remembrance of that time—of B-29s and torpedoes, of bombs and bayonets, and of courage and sacrifice.
There are some in the world today who think of our economic age as the "Age of Entrepreneurs." It is a time to take a chance on a dream, to try something different, to have faith in the future. The entrepreneurial spirit is one of courage, independence, and risk-taking. Those who have it are the ambitious people who fire the furnace of economic development, who are unafraid to extend themselves into unknown. They are the ones who are credited with creating a business atmosphere of opportunity and growth.
God is the maker of all things. But of all His creations, He has set man apart by extending to us the opportunity and responsibility of creative enterprise. He made us to be like Him, to be not merely created, but to be creators.
A father died and left a grieving child. "Where is my father now?" she asked, then paused. Scanning a family portrait, she saw his mark on every child, gene deep. One with father's dark eyes, another with his height, large hands on still another to cup with comfort a slumping shoulder. "That's where my father lives," she said.
We speak, in religion, of having Christlike love and compassion, but is it something of which we just speak? Perhaps we dwell too much on theology and not enough on religion, too much on theory and not enough on application, too much dogma to the neglect of charity and brotherly kindness.
It is difficult to talk of suicide since it is such a personal act, yet one which affects many others. We also speak without experience, yet some have called it cowardice, insanity, and failure.
There is a time everyone in school anticipates. It is the end—graduation. It is also a time usually referred to as commencement—the beginning. As the young, and some who are not so young, graduate and leave the halls of formal education, they begin to realize that they are, in a sense, freshmen again—that the good life is a series of learning experiences.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said: “There are only two powers in the world—the sword and the pen; and, in the end, the former is always conquered by the latter.” History has proven the statement to be right, in the long term—the pen is mightier. But, in the short run, even Napoleon turned to war to achieve […]