Upward Thought

Hi all, We've officially completed the migration of this blog to upwardthought.org. All currently published posts here should be available there. From now on, all new posts will appear there. Beyond a one-source site, the new home of the blog will allow us to add additional features that blogger does not have, such as email notifications for new posts. Please stay tuned as we continue to improve upwardthought.org. Thank you to all those who have and continue to donate to make it possible. Feel free to send any feedback to upwardthought at gmail.com. I hope to see you there.

A week or so ago, I made a video on the Word of Wisdom, addressing how far those who think they live it are from implementing the purpose for which it was given, and talking about a few of the things in the modern world that we all should be paying attention to in that regard. As with all of my videos, I inserted it into the queue according to its perceived priority relative to the other material. (I presently have a few month's worth of uploaded videos at the pace of one per two days). Adam Boyle just released a video where he did an excellent job making the case that your physical situation affects your spiritual situation. One of the several aspects he did an excellent job laying out is that we didn't get here in a day, and so we ought to embrace the changes we know we need to make to our physical activity, nutrition, etc., even if it takes time to do so. Check out the video.

Colin Bagley posted a twelve minute presentation reviewing "Through Faith." It can be found here .

I received this comment on the video "You've made God's house a den of thieves." Comment Hi Rob,  I enjoy listening to your thoughts and have started reading some of your books. It’s evident that you have wrestled with these issues at great length, and that knowledge has been given to you in response to your faithfulness.  I hope you won’t mind if my comments call into question some aspects of your approach and views on Jesus Christ and His church.  It seems that you have some issues reconciling the grander vision of the gospel (experiencing a mighty change of heart) with the orthodoxy (ordinances). Because some members of the church (including church leaders) place emphasis on the ordinances of the gospel, or mistakingly see them as ends in and of themselves, to the detriment of experiencing this mighty change of heart, you appear to see them (the ordinances) as unnecessary, or at the very least, secondary. This calls into question the need for an organised church, a...

Hi all, This Wednesday (June 19th) at 7pm I'll be giving a free talk entitled "The Weightier Matters: Judgment, Mercy, and Faith." Many are familiar with Jesus' exposition on the two great commandments, but his declaration of judgment, mercy, and faith as the "weightier matters" in Matthew 23:23 is rarely, if ever, discussed. In this talk, I'll discuss how each of these concepts mean a lot more than commonly understood, contrast them to what most professed Christians focus on instead, and show how upgrading our priorities to better match those given by the Lord leads us to better understand and live more like Jesus Christ. The talk is hosted by the Boyle family, whose address appears below. 218 N 860 E American Fork, UT 84003 Adam requests that those who can bring their own folding chairs in case we run out of chairs. If you live within a reasonable range, I hope to see you there. For everyone else, I intend on recording the talk and posting it to YouTub...

Hi all, I will be in SLC on Wednesday, June 19th, 2024. If there is anyone from Lehi to Ogden who is interested in hosting a talk Wednesday at 7pm, I would be interested in giving one. I am happy to speak to a private group, and otherwise would also be happy to open the meeting to the public if you choose, in which case I will announce the details here and on YouTube. Either way, I will probably record the audio and post it online. If anyone is interested, please email me at upwardthought@gmail.com and we'll see what we can arrange. I apologize for the short notice. -Rob

I have a friend who has a YouTube channel where he makes videos giving counsel to young men. He posted a video today where he used a great analogy to help young men understand how to understand their own potential and the potential of those they date. I recommend watching and sharing it.

Yesterday I received notice from the IRS that the Upward Thought Foundation has been awarded 501c3 status, meaning donations to the foundation are tax deductible to the limits of applicable laws. The language on the foundation's donation page will be changed with the next site update to reflect the approval. Those who will not itemize deductions are still encouraged to donate directly up to the IRS annual gift limits, as direct donations are not subject to the payroll and income taxes that have to be paid on foundation money. See that above linked page for details.

The book Joy on Purpose  is now available on Amazon. The free pdf will be available at a future date on upwardthought.org. Here is the synopsis from the back cover: What would you give for deep, continuous meaning in everything you do each day? Can you confidently say you have what you want in life? If not, do you know why? Do you feel you are achieving everything you should or could? Do you feel like you can? Do you have the time and resources to do so? An unbelievable amount of joy and productive accomplishment could be yours if you knew how to find it and had sufficient motivation to obtain it. This book will give you both. The life plan is a novel system for maximizing long-term joy through intentional living. It is a practical, easy-to-use, and easy-to-understand means of injecting greater meaning into every corner of your life through designing, prioritizing, and living each day to best advance your purpose while aligning with ideal character qualities and values. As you impl...

A friend of mine sent me a video reviewing the enormous number of immigrants pouring into the US and the stunning amount of money the US government is spending on housing and feeding them. The video highlights how the government is funneling billions of dollars to NGOs who move the immigrants into the country, where they are housed and fed long-term in hotels. The example of a hotel from NYC was given, where some 5,000 illegals are being housed, each being fed by a $35,000 per year budget--just for food. Add in the hotel cost, medical, etc., and that amount could easily double. The causes of this crisis are multivariate, like so many other problems in the complex modern world. An insistence on single-cause analysis simply empowers the problems to continue, in the same way cutting the head of a hydra does nothing to stop its attack. One variable is the interest the Chinese have in continuing their decades long asymmetric war against the United States. The purpose is not limited to impor...

Over the years, I'm sure I've met quite a few people who are expecting some sort of sudden warning from God to tell them to leave their present location for a safer place. This expectation isn't unfounded. There are plenty of examples in the scriptures of a person being warned by God that something was about to happen that would render their locale undesirable, to say the least. What is interesting is that so many of these people seem to overlook a few things that ought to be glaringly obvious, namely the differences between themselves and those who received the warning. All information that God sends to the earth is received in a cascade. For important reasons, in almost every case, the idea is initially received by a single person here on the ground before being spread to others, either through repetition from the first recipient, or through subsequent revelation to others thereafter.[1] Light and truth is successive. You can't learn greater things without first livin...

A friend of mine was texting someone he cares about who is struggling, and he shared the texts with me. I asked him if I could post them here. He said I could. He said he would polish them if he knew they would be publicly posted, but I think there is great value in them as they are. I would invite you all to think about the power God places in our hands to share highly valuable ideas with others. So many of these opportunities cost so little but benefit so much. For context, you should know that my friend suffered the untimely death of a son a few years ago. Here is what he said: Rise above it.  You need all of your logical / rational abilities to figure out what to do next. If you are in an emotional state, you can't even think straight! I've been there! Focus on removing all of those distractions. I've done meditation and it helps! Get up super early, find a quiet place, meditate for an hour and pray for another hour. Practice removing all your thoughts. Blank out your m...

If you've been paying attention, you've seen the unfolding of the cessation of freedom of speech, something I have long told you would happen. See, for example, this newly proposed law in Canada. The pattern: - Pass laws giving authorities the ability to arrest nearly everyone. - Achieve desired behavior through the threat of enforcement. - Selectively enforce these laws on the subset of violators who pose the greatest threat to your power. This is not specific to the UK, the EU, or Canada. It will happen here, too. As it does, the internet will continue to dwindle in its ability to make available ideas that are different from what those in power want you to believe. I believe that the constraining of channels of information has been underway for around ten years now, and we will eventually reach the point where you have less access to information than people did before the internet. Make use of what you can still access to learn and improve as much as you can while you can. Th...

A friend wrote me an email that included this line: "We are a work in progress I hope." As long as we are pushing with all our might, mind, and strength, there is progress. I've thought about how sledging a boulder is progress, whether you see cracks forming or not. You never know when the next stroke will achieve the end. Similarly, even if you aren't strong enough to lift a certain rock, trying with all your might will actually make you stronger. Even if you can't yet move it, trying to with all your might will eventually succeed. Whatever physical limits are involved in this analogy do not apply to spiritual progress. Search for the Pearl of Great Price with all your heart, might, mind, and strength. Seek what is worth the most with everything you have to give. Reconcile your time, resources, and desires in life to what you perceive to be of the greatest value, and adapt your target as you learn more. As long as we cling to the iron rod [1], keep our hands on t...

A friend of mine subscribes to Joel Skousen's email newsletters. He forwarded me a recent one that included this quote: "I told them frankly that we don’t have enough time to change where this country is headed, given how limited are our capabilities to reach the people via mass media, and the growing wokeness and moral corruption of Americans which makes them resistant to these kinds of hard truths. But the great advantage to telling the truth, however negative, is that they will someday remember who told them the truth, and that opens the door for future leadership."  I agree with Joel in this assessment of the lack of time to change where the country is headed, and the reasons he gives. I am not so sure that people are as inclined as he hopes to remember and recognize those who told them the truth before they realized it was true. There have been oh so many examples of truths told by individuals before they were accepted as such by the majority--usually through sad exp...

Many have attempted to achieve unity in groups numbering two or more through creating and adopting a set of shared beliefs. The problem with this approach is that our lives consist of a stream of new experiences which hopefully catalyze growth in what we think, feel, and do. Subsequently, whether as pair or more, the only way to maintain unity is to either continue to grow together or to ignore the growth suggested by new information. The former is difficult, but the only way to achieve true and continuing unity.  As applied to marriage, this principle suggests that the criteria of finding someone who thinks, feels, and does what you do is not ideal, as this will only result in someone who matches who you and they are right now.  A much better metric is to find someone who cares about improvement as much as you do; someone who desires, searches for, and does what is best, and does so based on their own independent rational evaluation of evidence. Under this paradigm, you will ...

Jared Eastley posted a list of protocols he aspires to live by. I think they are pretty solid. He gave me permission to repost a few of them here, and you can read his full list if you feel so inclined. Always do that which yields the best value, the best benefit, and the best outcome—short term and long term, individually and universally. Always seek to better understand the character and perfections of Jesus Christ, and to manifest Him in how you live every day of your life. Continually ask yourself: What do you sincerely believe Jesus would do? And what would Jesus NOT do? What would the ideal you do? And what would the ideal you NOT do? What would a real hero do? And what would a hero not do? Be the hero in your own journey. Always tell the truth, or at least don’t lie. Always do what’s best, or at least don’t do any harm. Do not sacrifice your standards or ideals for short-term convenience. Be honest. Do not rationalize. Think things through. Do not just go the easy way. Do not o...

I have told you for a long time now that there are intentions in play to fully control your ability to exchange goods and services with others, travel, and even communicate. I have told you that this isn’t some far fetched theory, as many of those who could make it happen have publicly spoken about their intent to. Nor does it require technology they don’t already have. It's coming, and planks in the platform are already laid. Maybe you’ll believe this guy, saying the same things on Glenn Beck .  Here’s the question: when they pull this off, sooner or later, will you comply with whatever they make you do to stay plugged in? If not, where will you go and what will you do?

On more than one occasion, the Lord has showed me examples of blessings he has prepared specifically for me whose preparations occupied a long time span, beginning far before I even thought to seek for them. He truly knows all things past, present, and future, and has and will do everything necessary to honor all his promises, even when that takes actions that span much more than the limited time span of our lives. In more than one case, the blessings were prepared from before my birth. I marveled that God would do anything like that for me, and then I marveled again at my lack of faith in assuming that his goodness toward me was limited in any way by my inadequacy.[1] What the Lord has to give us will always exceed what we have to give him, and the way we obtain the former is to give the latter. In three such visions, in different ways, I was shown elaborate places that were mine, even though I did not remember ever being there before. Each place exceeded the value of the places I had...

When finishing drywall, the task at hand is to affix paper to each joint and adhere joint compound in such a way to make the raised edges of the paper invisible. This is done by creating a smooth, tapered transition. When preaching the gospel, the typical approach is blunt, consisting of one or only a few interactions. Like capturing the area under a curve with only one polygon, the coverage of such an approach will be limited. Many opportunities where the gospel would have been accepted with more and smaller interactions will be missed. To more accurately capture the area under a curve, more and thinner polygons must be used. To more expansively capture the set of people willing to accept the gospel, the way must be prepared through similar smoothing: more steps of smaller size. Now ye may suppose that this is foolishness in me; but behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise. (Alma 3...

Look no further than this grandma, who is bravely stating what she has learned in life. Look at the hateful comments, especially on Twitter! https://twitter.com/godlywomanhood https://www.youtube.com/@LoriAlexander1980/videos Look at how much attempted shame, blame shifting, and otherwise sidestepping of her arguments, all in the name of feigned empathy. These attackers pretend to be motivated by a desire to help others when they are actually just sacrificing the lives of those who have not yet made their mistake for the momentary alleviation of their own guilt. Without lying women and cowardly men, more than 99% of all problems in this world would probably go away. Why don't older women tell younger women the truth? Because women who feel guilty for having chosen something else will tear them apart. Kudos to the courageous. Lonely are the brave.

Question: I worry that my drive to do good is more for the people I serve than the God I serve. At the moment, I derive most of my joy and encouragement from serving those in my life. Making their life more fulfilling and more full of joy. I understand that this light and this joy comes from God alone. However, as much as I love God conceptually, my love in him is based on faith. It does not feel as full as it could and should be. Having a relationship with God as one person can have with another feels so necessary to my heart. However, I have not met my Lord. Is there any other way to build that personal relationship with the Lord than by meeting him? Short Answer: You don't develop a personal relationship with the Lord by meeting him, but by serving him. Through loving others as God would in your place, you come to better understand the value of the love he has already shown you, and you also come to see more of his love. To love another is to suffer for their benefit, which in i...

A friend of mine lives next door to a professional dog sledder. When my friend goes on vacation, she milks his cow, and when she goes on vacation, his family has to exercise her dogs. I was asking him all about it, and one of the interesting things he told me was the most important rule of being on a dog sled: no matter what, don't let go. The dogs will not stop running until they are exhausted. The sled has a brake designed to make it very hard to continue to pull. If they are on a tear, even if the sled tips, if you let go, the lightness of the unencumbered sled means that when they finally stop, you'll never be able to catch up on foot. The Lord made clear that when we sign up on his team, we must be all in.[1] There is no stopping.[2] It's onward from one new height to the next.  And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:62) As I have walked through a nonstop stream of overwhelming experi...

What is the significance of the Lord’s resurrection? A principle component is the evidence it provides that he exists and the certification it provides of what the scriptures record about him. His resurrection proved that his claims of knowing the way to life were true, and that those who live what he taught will receive the same. While these statements are hopefully unsurprising and uncontroversial with professed Christians, they are an example of an all-too-common problem with modern Christianity: the tendency to hold beliefs that contradict each other without seeming to notice or care. I’ll explain what I mean in this case. The common definition of faith is something like “when you believe without evidence.” If evidence is not necessary, why would Christ go through all the trouble he did to die and rise again? Yes, there were other things he came to do. But why didn’t you take issue with my claim that a principle component of the resurrection was the evidence for the gospel he preac...

Lately, I've been dabbling on Twitter/x (@upward_thought), searching for those searching for greater light and truth. It's been a while since I've had overtly religious conversations with people outside of the LDS sphere. Boy, am I disappointed. I'd say that more than 75% of people claiming to be Christian know and care less about how Jesus actually is than your average atheist. Instead, they are like pull-string talking dolls with the same 3-4 brainless slogans, depending on their sect. These are not sincere people; these are not people who think and feel according to the light they have. Meanwhile, it's not hard to find someone who, in spite of claiming that they don't believe in God or aren't sure if he exists, actually live life at least quasi-intentionally. The way must be cleared, and it will be, as greater challenges are continuously poured out to reveal the limits of what people mistake for sufficient foundations. Lord, may the dead branches be remov...

I found this parable to have great worth to me.

There are all sorts of self-imposed constraints on what each person is able to receive from heaven.[1] It is much easier to receive a gospel truth from another living person than from heaven directly (though, in all cases, it must still come through God's voice to you--your conscience--or you won't/shouldn't believe it).[2] A living person can act as a living seer stone [3] up to the degree to which they have the spirit of God and are free from constraints, but what you receive directly from heaven will be limited to your understanding, sacrifice, faith, trust in God, and so on.[4] If you find someone with greater understanding, sacrifice, faith, trust in God, and so on,[5] you have found a "window of heaven" larger than your own.[6] The spirit will not fight against you to force you to receive revelation beyond your worthiness, but another person can, up to the limits of their love for you.[7] [1] 12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear the...

This doctor is one of shockingly few who studies the brain effects of menopause. According to her, the female hormonal decline begins on average at age 39 and lasts about ten years before menopause completes. Symptoms include significant behavioral and cognitive changes. Here's the interview , bookmarked at where it gets interesting. As more men learn these things, there will be many more single women over 30 looking at a lifetime alone.

There are oh-so-many vital ideas that oh-so-many people do not get.

In general, I will say that the problem of grossly undervaluing the greatest of gifts is endemic among all people, and errors in appraisal of value (how much is possible and where it is found) may well be the single greatest obstacle to eternal life for those alive today, if not throughout all time. Specifically to this instance: 30 For behold, [angels] are subject unto him, to minister according to the word of his command, showing themselves unto them of strong faith and a firm mind in every form of godliness. 31 And the office of their ministry is to call men unto repentance, and to fulfil and to do the work of the covenants of the Father, which he hath made unto the children of men, to prepare the way among the children of men, by declaring the word of Christ unto the chosen vessels of the Lord, that they may bear testimony of him. 32 And by so doing, the Lord God prepareth the way that the residue of men may have ...