Keeping Your Spiritual Balance

"Here is a picture of my wife, LaDawn, and me. She was a teacher here when we were courting. Sometimes in conversation with friends someone will make a comment about a fact that is new to me. I might say, “I didn’t know that. That is very interesting.” My wife always delights in saying, “You didn’t know that? Why I learned that in the fifth grade!” The reason she says that is because I skipped the fifth grade. The teachers at my school moved six of us from the fourth grade to the sixth grade. During the year they realized their mistake and so I spent two years in the sixth grade but no time in the fifth grade—a serious gap in my education. 

Now I mention kindergarten and fifth grade for this reason: too many people are trying to solve the serious complex problems of life with a sketchy, superficial, fifth grade understanding of gospel doctrine. This is not only unwise—it is dangerous. So here is the question: Are you smarter than a fifth grader? Getting an academic education is important––a high priority in life to be sure, but it is not even in the same ballpark as getting an education in gospel principles.

Don’t neglect your education in the things of the Spirit. Don’t you dare settle for a kindergarten or a fifth grade education in the doctrines and principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You will be wise to devote a significant portion of time, energy and effort to a serious study of the doctrine and principles of the gospel so you can apply them with skill every day of your life. Some of you are strong in subjects like philosophy or mathematics but weak in subjects like faith and the Atonement. Watch your balance!    

Don’t make life’s most important and defining decisions based on what you learned studying biology or Shakespeare, and don’t make them based on a shaky fifth grade foundation of spiritual knowledge. 

 We value all truth. Truth is truth. But some truth is more important than other truth. Understanding principles of chemistry and sociology is less important than understanding principles of honesty and repentance. Furthermore, the principles taught in the science of chemistry might change with new discoveries over time. The principles of repentance will not change. If you understand the science of medicine so well that you become one of the world’s greatest physicians but do not understand the principles of honesty and charity, you will not be happy. If you understand and live the principles of honesty and charity, even if you were a run-of-the-mill doctor or teacher, you have a good chance to be supremely happy.

Have you learned that answers to prayer usually come a piece at a time, line upon line, rather than all at once? Have you learned this so you do not get discouraged when you pray earnestly and the answers don’t seem to come? Have you learned that the Lord has His own timetable for answering? God’s clock and ours are rarely synchronized. The Lord says over and over in the scriptures that He will do things in his own due time.  

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf: I was assigned to accompany then-Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf to reorganize a stake and select a new stake president in Texas. After our interviews, we both had good feelings about a certain man. He asked me if I felt this was the right man. I answered that I thought he was the right man, but that I did not feel that I had received a firm spiritual confirmation. We continued to discuss and pray and still I did not feel that I had the solid confirmation I wanted, so he simply asked me, “Well, do you have a better idea?” It was time to make the decision. We went ahead and called the man and as we went forward, it became clear that he was certainly the Lord’s choice. Brigham Young said it this way:

“If I do not know the will of my Father, and what he requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in life, or in regard to my own course, ...or those I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that judgment will teach me, He is bound to…honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.”⁸

If you do your homework, study it out, and earnestly plead with the Lord for an answer and do not feel you have received it––go ahead with your best judgment and the Lord will either back up your decision or He will soon warn you that you are going down the wrong path. "

 

Keeping Your Spiritual Balance

Elder Larry W. Gibbons

Second Quorum of the Seventy

See the End from the Beginning

...

"Allow me to share with you an experience from my own boyhood. When I was 11 years old, my family had to leave East Germany and begin a new life in West Germany overnight. Until my father could get back into his original profession as a government employee, my parents operated a small laundry business in our little town. I became the laundry delivery boy. To be able to do that effectively, I needed a bicycle to pull the heavy laundry cart. I had always dreamed of owning a nice, sleek, shiny, sporty red bicycle. But there had never been enough money to fulfill this dream. What I got instead was a heavy, ugly, black, sturdy workhorse of a bicycle. I delivered laundry on that bike before and after school for quite a few years. Most of the time, I was not overly excited about the bike, the cart, or my job. Sometimes the cart seemed so heavy and the work so tiring that I thought my lungs would burst, and I often had to stop to catch my breath. Nevertheless, I did my part because I knew we desperately needed the income as a family, and it was my way to contribute.

If I had only known back then what I learned many years later—if I had only been able to see the end from the beginning—I would have had a better appreciation of these experiences, and it would have made my job so much easier.

"Many years later, when I was about to be drafted into the military, I decided to volunteer instead and join the Air Force to become a pilot. I loved flying and thought being a pilot would be my thing.

To be accepted for the program I had to pass a number of tests, including a strict physical exam. The doctors were slightly concerned by the results and did some additional medical tests. Then they announced, “You have scars on your lung which are an indication of a lung disease in your early teenage years, but obviously you are fine now.” The doctors wondered what kind of treatment I had gone through to heal the disease. Until the day of that examination I had never known that I had any kind of lung disease. Then it became clear to me that my regular exercise in fresh air as a laundry boy had been a key factor in my healing from this illness. Without the extra effort of pedaling that heavy bicycle day in and day out, pulling the laundry cart up and down the streets of our town, I might never have become a jet fighter pilot and later a 747 airline captain.

"We don’t always know the details of our future. We do not know what lies ahead. We live in a time of uncertainty. We are surrounded by challenges on all sides. Occasionally discouragement may sneak into our day; frustration may invite itself into our thinking; doubt might enter about the value of our work. In these dark moments Satan whispers in our ears that we will never be able to succeed, that the price isn’t worth the effort, and that our small part will never make a difference. He, the father of all lies, will try to prevent us from seeing the end from the beginning."

...

"See the End from the Beginning"

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Ensign

May, 2006

Yellow Canaries

"Nearly 60 years ago, while I was serving as a young bishop, Kathleen McKee, a widow in my ward, passed away. Among her things were three pet canaries. Two, with perfect yellow coloring, were to be given to her friends. The third, Billie, had yellow coloring marred by gray on his wings. Sister McKee had written in a note to me: “Will you and your family make a home for him? He isn’t the prettiest, but his song is the best.”

"Sister McKee was much like her yellow canary with gray on its wings. She was not blessed with beauty, gifted with poise, or honored by posterity. Yet her song helped others to more willingly bear their burdens and more ably shoulder their tasks.

"The world is filled with yellow canaries with gray on their wings. The pity is that so precious few have learned to sing. Some are young people who don’t know who they are, what they can be or even want to be; all they want is to be somebody. Others are stooped with age, burdened with care, or filled with doubt—living lives far below the level of their capabilities."

 (please click on article title/link below to read the remainder of this article)

Canaries with Gray on Their Wings
by President Thomas S. Monson
Ensign
June 2010

Prayer and Promptings

"That sweet, quiet voice of inspiration comes more as a feeling than it does as a sound. Pure intelligence can be spoken into the mind. The Holy Ghost communicates with our spirits through the mind more than through the physical senses. ⁴ This guidance comes as thoughts, as feelings through promptings and impressions. ⁵ We may feel the words of spiritual communication more than hear them and see with spiritual rather than with mortal eyes. <sup>6"

 "</sup>One of the adversary’s sharpest tools is to convince us that we are no longer worthy to pray. No matter who you are or what you may have done, you can always pray."

"Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees. Prayer is your personal key to heaven. The lock is on your side of the veil. And I have learned to conclude all my prayers with “Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10; see also Luke 11:2; 3 Nephi 13:10).

Do not expect to be free entirely from trouble and disappointment and pain and discouragement, for these are the things that we were sent to earth to endure.

Someone wrote:

With thoughtless and impatient hands

We tangle up the plans

The Lord hath wrought.

And when we cry in pain He saith,

“Be quiet, man, while I untie the knot.” ¹¹

 

"The scriptures promise, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13)."

 Prayer and Promptings
Boyd K. Packer
Ensign, November, 2009

Life's True Purpose

"Please do not misunderstand me, brothers and sisters. Of course we need to prepare for worthy work to do. Yes, we do need to do our work well, whatever we choose to do in life. We need to be able to render significant service. And before we can achieve that competence, we need an education. With us, education is a religious responsibility. The glory of God really is intelligence (see D&C 93:36).

"But the learning of man has its limitations. And sometimes, as in our circumstance in rural Mexico, the combined learning of many experts cannot be applied when we need it most. We have to place our trust in the Lord.

"That experience in Mexico taught us another important lesson. It pertains to our ultimate priorities and highest destinies as mortal beings. We learned that a doctor’s ultimate destination is not in the hospital. For a lawyer, it is not in the courtroom. For a jet pilot, it is not in the cockpit of a Boeing 747. Each person’s chosen occupation is only a means to an end; it is not an end in itself.

"The end for which each of you should strive is to be the person that you can become—the person who God wants you to be. The day will come when your professional career will end. The career that you will have labored so hard to achieve—the work that will have supported you and your family—will one day be behind you.

"Then you will have learned this great lesson: much more important than what you do for a living is what kind of person you become. When you leave this frail existence, what you have become will matter most. Attributes such as 'faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, godliness, charity, humility, [and] diligence' (D&C 4:6) will all be weighed in the Lord’s balance."

"Neither Trust in the Arm of Flesh"
Elder Russell M. Nelson
Ensign
March, 2010

Faith in the Lord/Trust in the Lord

"Faith in the Lord is trust in the Lord.  We cannot have true faith in the Lord without also having complete trust in the Lord's will and in the Lord's timing.  As a result, no matter how strong our faith is, it cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him in whom we have faith.  Remember that when your prayers do not seem to be answered in the way or at the time you desire.  The exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is always subject to the order of heaven, to the goodness and will and wisdom and timing of the Lord."

Elder Dallin H. Oaks
"The Atonement and Faith"
Ensign
April, 2010