With celestial sight, trials impossible to change become possible to endure.
Russell M. NelsonRead
I fear that too many have sadly surrendered their agency to the adversary and are saying by their conduct, 'I care more about satisfying my own desires than I do about bearing the Savior's power to bless others.'
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of agency and prioritizing service to others over personal desires.
Russell M. Nelson's quote reflects on the concept of personal agency, suggesting that many individuals forfeit their ability to choose wisely in favor of indulging their own wants. It serves as a reminder that true power comes from the willingness to serve others, especially in a faith context where one might bear the influence of a higher moral authority, like the Savior, to positively impact the lives of those around them.
In practice
In a motivational speech about selflessness and community service.
With celestial sight, trials impossible to change become possible to endure.
Marriage is sanctified when it is cherished and honored in holiness. That union is not merely between husband and wife; it embraces a partnership with God.
Agency, or the power to choose, was ours as spirit children of our Creator before the world was. It is a gift from God, nearly as precious as life itself. Often, however, agency is misunderstood. While we are free to choose, once we have made those choices, we are tied to the consequence of those choices. We are free to take drugs or not. But once we choose to use a habit-forming drug, we are bound to the consequences of that choice. Addiction surrenders later freedom to choose.
We live in a time of turmoil. Earthquakes and tsunamis wreak devastation, governments collapse, economic stresses are severe, the family is under attack,_x000D_ and divorce rates are rising. We have great cause for concern. But we do not need to let our fears displace our faith. We can combat those fears by strengthening our faith.
As we go through life, even through very rough waters, a father's instinctive impulse to cling tightly to his wife or to his children may not be the best way to accomplish his objective. Instead, if he will lovingly cling to the Savior and the iron rod of the gospel, his family will want to cling to him and to the Savior.
Each daughter of God is of infinite worth because of her divine mission.
One of the things that makes Wittgenstein a real artist to me is that he realized that no conclusion could be more horrible than solipsism.
The rise and fall of civilizations in the long, broad course of history can be seen to have been largely a function of the integrity and cogency of their supporting canons of myth; for not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization.
The written word is weak. Many people prefer life to it. Life gets your blood going, & it smells good. Writing is mere writing, literature is mere. It appeals only to the subtlest senses—the imagination’s vision, & the imagination’s hearing—& the moral sense, & the intellect. This writing that you do, that so thrills you, that so rocks & exhilarates you, as if you were dancing next to the band, is barely audible to anyone else.
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled one is truly vanquished.
So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.
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