Thoughts and stories, by Pal

This is a very perceptive article, well worth reading and thinking about! Guess this dangerous scripture riddle in 14 clues By  Shalissa Lindsay  · August 17, 2020 This scripturally prophesied danger can be named with a single word.  Can you guess it?  CLUE SET #1: 1.  I’m delicious to practically everyone. 2.  I am extremely lucrative. 3.  I can increase your social standing and popularity. 4.  Love songs and sonnets owe their success to me. 5.  Once I was offered mostly to kings and rulers. Today, I am offered to absolutely everyone on the planet. 6.  Ancient wise emperors feared me as a poison. Have an idea?  Keep thinking while you scroll down for the next set of clues… x x x x x x CLUE SET #2: 7.  I am never associated with God, angels, or prophets—with one exception.  During Alma-the-Younger’s sinful youth—before he repented—he used me a great deal. [i] ...

I believe we all have need of the virtue of PATIENCE!  This is a great article! “Ye Have Need of Patience” By Ted Gibbons  · June 19, 2019 Sign up for Meridian’s Free Newsletter, please  CLICK HERE Author Ted Gibbons passed away recently, after a long battle with cancer. In honor of his memory and the wonderful insights he shared here on Meridian, we will continue to publish his work periodically. A friend wrote a message to me in which she reflected at some length on the Lord’s efforts to teach her patience. Her observations resonated with me. The Lord spends a lot of time teaching his people patience.     Some form of the word “patience” appears almost one hundred times in the scriptures. I found the word three times in Old Testament, forty-six times in New Testament, twenty-three times in The Book of Mormon, and twenty-two times in the D&C. I took the time to read every reference. Some of my favorite passages follow. Da...

This article from LDS Living has so much wisdom in it!  It has made me think a lot! 4 Ways What You Think Is Humility Could Actually Be Pride by Julie de Azevedo Hanks  | May 02, 2019 Mormon Life Pride is often referred to as the universal sin. From the perspective of Latter-day Saint theology, this seems pretty accurate; pride caused Satan to rebel against heaven, pride led to the downfall of ancient civilizations, pride is the driving factor that has caused evil individuals throughout history to come to power, and anyone who has studied the Book of Mormon has probably heard of the pride cycle. However, for this discussion, I’d like to move away from the archetypal, “big picture” idea of pride to focus on the perspective of it as an individual characteristic, that is, of personal pride. It seems that certain patterns of pride are easy to identify. I think that one of the reasons that pride is so difficult to manage, ...

When We Try to One-Up the Lord's Standards: Culture vs. Commandments by Brent L. Top and Wendy C. Top, Adapted from "Finding Inner Peace: Lessons Learned from Trying too Hard"  | Mar. 01, 2018 Makes You Think Mormon Life Comments Sometimes in an attempt to prove our faithfulness to the gospel, Mormons create standards that require even more than what the Lord is asking of us. So before we expend too much energy trying to live these "higher" standards, we should ask ourselves, "Are we living the cultural gospel or the Lord's gospel?" In their book,  Finding Inner Peace: Lessons Learned from Trying too Hard ,  Brent L. Top and Wendy C. Top share deeply personal experiences about how trying to live the "cultural gospel" took a serious toll on Wendy and the entire family as she suffered a breakdown and battled clinical depression. They write: As Wendy began to evaluate the caus...