Good Morning, or Good Afternoon, Good Evening,
this post should take approximately five minutes to read from start to finish.
This post focuses on a BYU (Brigham Young University) Devotional in July 1982, and it is called "The Price of Love" by H. Hal Visick. This post is part two and I would like to share with you some highlights while I was reading the Devotional.
Brother Visick has mentioned the following; "Our Modern World
... I want to look at something of our modern world, where we’re going, to see if we can find our way a little bit. It ought to be obvious that a young man who pretends to love in an effort to seduce cannot really love because, if he truly did, he would sacrifice what he wants for the good of the person beloved.
It follows that when we take an infant as, for example, I first took Jennifer, our oldest, helpless, unable to feed herself, clothe herself, clean herself, and work and spend all of our time for this child, moving her up from infancy, clothing her, working for her, with her, striving through a thousand different individual, family, and Church meetings, it follows that we will love her.
It has to be so. And it turns out often that the most difficult child in the family is the most loved because the family has made the greater sacrifice for that child. Of course, the child has to learn to love, too. And when he doesn’t pay the price, doesn’t serve, he doesn’t learn to love.
It seems that when we make an investment in something, we value it, we care for it. ... The first time I knew how my father felt about me was when I took my baby Jennifer in my arms, and I said to myself, “Dad held me like this. Dad felt the feelings I feel.” Then I thought, “Why, why didn’t I know this? Why didn’t I tell him how much it meant to me?”
... What do we know about a retarded child’s quality of life unless we can be that child? Many retarded children are happier and more loving than the so-called “normal child.” ... Thoreau said that every deed goes into the great sea of cause and effect and remains there throughout eternity. Who knows what effect that one death has on the quality of life of all the people in this generation and those to come?
... There comes a time when you must pay the price, the sacrifice of love. ... I was looking at an article in the Wall Street Journal about something called “values clarification” that’s been taught in our schools for about ten years. I don’t mean in Provo schools, but in schools throughout the country. Values clarification says that there really is not any right or wrong or good or bad.
Values are what we say they are. And, therefore, we should not be imposing on children our moral standards and beliefs. They ought to invent their own moral standards and beliefs. ... They are saying that society should not tell you ... whether you ought to use drugs.
You make up your mind after you have examined it for yourself. And so some thirteen-, fourteen-, fifteen-year-old child, not having the benefit of the experience of older and, hopefully, wiser heads, is making up a set of values and acting on those values.
Whenever their parents say, “What you’re doing is wrong,” he or she will say, “You can’t tell me that. That’s your value judgment, not mine.” ... Without sacrifice of desires and appetites for a higher good, what will our society consist of? What character or quality can result from self-indulgence and sloth?
... I would like to encourage us to see the joy of love and sacrifice, to find in the things that come to hand—the work that must be done—the things that apparently the Lord assigns us whether we want them or not—situations where we can create love.
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| "We often think of CHARITY AS AN ACTION, But I think of Charity as a STATE OF THE HEART." - Elaine Dalton. |
“Vaunteth Not Itself”
True love is not what the world calls love. The word has been cheapened and destroyed along with many other once-beautiful words. When the world talks of love, it means living together without benefit of marriage or ... something equal far from the love born of sacrifice. That’s not what the Lord means by love.
Maybe that’s why the word charity was selected by the translators of the King James Version in the book of Corinthians. Remember what it says about love - charity, the perfect love of Christ - the love Christ has for us: “Charity suffereth long and is kind. . . .” (in other words, doesn’t advertise itself). Charity “is not puffed up” (1 Corinthians 13:4).
(Charity isn’t pride because pride is a love of self, not of others!) All these qualities of love come through paying the price, through service, through sacrifice. ... If we would just pay those prices, we would learn to love BYU and we would make something of ourselves.
... Sacrifice of pride will inevitably create character. “Charity vaunteth not itself.’ I don’t want to leave the impression, however, that I think life ought to be a dismal surrender of every good thing to the Lord. The Lord doesn’t need our things. He doesn’t need even our service. In fact, he told the Jews on one occasion, when they were boasting about being children of Abraham, that he could make children of Abraham out of the rocks on the ground.
He doesn’t need what we give. We need to give. ... Do you know what “sacrifice” means? ... I pray the Lord of heaven will give us the opportunity to profit in that way and through our sacrifices learn to love as he does. ..."
If you would like to read the whole Devotional either now or in your own time, here is the link below.
Stay Tuned until next time.
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