Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Good Evening,
this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish.
This post is focus on October 1996 General Conference and it is called, “According to the Desire of [Our] Hearts" by Neal A. Maxwell. This post is part two. I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the talk.
Elder Maxwell mentioned the following;
"Thus knowing gospel truths and doctrines is profoundly important, but we must also come to love them. When we love them, they will move us and help our desires and outward works to become more holy. Each assertion of a righteous desire, each act of service, and each act of worship, however small and incremental, adds to our spiritual momentum.
Fortunately for us, our loving Lord will work with us, “even if [we] can [do] no more than desire to believe,” providing we will “let this desire work in [us]” (Alma 32:27). ... Some of our present desires, therefore, need to be diminished and then finally dissolved. ... Once again, we must be honest with ourselves about the consequences of our desires, which follow as the night, the day. ...
Fortunately for us, our loving Lord will work with us, “even if [we] can [do] no more than desire to believe,” providing we will “let this desire work in [us]” (Alma 32:27). ... Some of our present desires, therefore, need to be diminished and then finally dissolved. ... Once again, we must be honest with ourselves about the consequences of our desires, which follow as the night, the day. ...
For instance, what is now only a weak desire to be a better spouse, father, or mother needs to become a stronger desire, just as Abraham experienced divine discontent and desired greater happiness and knowledge (see Abraham. 1:2). Our merciful and long-suffering Lord is ever ready to help.
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| "In order to succeed, your desire for SUCCESS should be greater than your fear of failure." - Bill Crosby. |
... In the same redemptive reaching out, our desiring to improve our human relationships usually requires some long-suffering. Sometimes reaching out is like trying to pat a porcupine. Even so, the accumulated quill marks are evidence that our hands of fellowship have been stretched out, too!
It is up to us. Therein lies life’s greatest and most persistent challenge. Thus when people are described as “having lost their desire for sin,” it is they, and they only, who deliberately decided to lose those wrong desires by being willing to “give away all [their] sins” in order to know God (Alma 22:18).
Unquestionably, parents have such a profound role in assisting in the educating of our desires, especially when parents combine explanation and exemplification! Even so, given our responsibilities for our own desires, we should not be surprised that Adam and Eve, such superb parents who conscientiously taught all things to their children, still lost some of them!
Lehi and Sariah made the same effort, doing so “with all the feeling of a tender parent” (1 Ne. 8:37). Yet they experienced the same thing with Laman and Lemuel, who “understood not the dealings of the Lord” (Mosiah 10:14). Fixing responsibility for such recalcitrance where it should be, the Prophet Joseph Smith observed: “Men who have no principle of … truth, do not understand the word of truth when they hear it.
The devil taketh away the word of truth out of their hearts, because there is no desire for righteousness in them” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 96). ... Besides, righteous parents are teaching more than they now realize. The later applications of and the grateful expressions for earlier parental influence are often delayed, and often for a long time.
... Brothers and sisters, a loving God will work with us, but the initiating particle of desire which ignites the spark of resolve must be our own! It all takes time. Said the Prophet Joseph: “The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; ...” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 51). Thus the work of eternity is not done in a moment, but, rather, in “process of time.” Time works for us when our desires do likewise!"
If you would like to read the whole talk either now or in your own time, here's the link below.
www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1996/10/according-to-the-desire-of-our-hearts
Lehi and Sariah made the same effort, doing so “with all the feeling of a tender parent” (1 Ne. 8:37). Yet they experienced the same thing with Laman and Lemuel, who “understood not the dealings of the Lord” (Mosiah 10:14). Fixing responsibility for such recalcitrance where it should be, the Prophet Joseph Smith observed: “Men who have no principle of … truth, do not understand the word of truth when they hear it.
The devil taketh away the word of truth out of their hearts, because there is no desire for righteousness in them” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 96). ... Besides, righteous parents are teaching more than they now realize. The later applications of and the grateful expressions for earlier parental influence are often delayed, and often for a long time.
... Brothers and sisters, a loving God will work with us, but the initiating particle of desire which ignites the spark of resolve must be our own! It all takes time. Said the Prophet Joseph: “The nearer man approaches perfection, the clearer are his views, and the greater his enjoyments, till he has overcome the evils of his life and lost every desire for sin; ...” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 51). Thus the work of eternity is not done in a moment, but, rather, in “process of time.” Time works for us when our desires do likewise!"
If you would like to read the whole talk either now or in your own time, here's the link below.
www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1996/10/according-to-the-desire-of-our-hearts
Stay Tuned until next time.
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