Upward Thought

During my daily devotion today (11/11/22), God frequently recalls to my mind something from thoughts past, just as he promised to do for all of us. I have a firm conviction that whatever God feels inclined to say to me in the moment is more important than anything I felt inclined to think about. True to this principle, whenever he begins speaking to me, I stop whatever I am doing--to the point of interrupting someone if they are speaking to me and excusing myself--and I go and drink the cup he has placed before me until it is empty. This morning, while traversing a deep stack of sequential thoughts, I was told to look up a quote from Heber C. Kimball. I was not given a great many words to go off of, but thanks to google, it was merely a time-consuming but not impossible task. So often, we expect God to make things easy for us, not realizing how much we cut ourselves off from by keeping the bar so low. For one thing, he uses the carrot of what we can comprehend to lead us to blessings w...

This is a message to all who profess to believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.  God said: 11 And I give unto you a commandment, that ye shall forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God. 12 For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith. 13 And whoso layeth down his life in my cause, for my name’s sake, shall find it again, even life eternal. (D&C 98) And where will you find every word which proceeded forth out of the mouth of God? God said: But this generation shall have my word through you; (D&C 5:10) 3 Which church was organized and established in the year of your Lord eighteen hundred and thirty, in the fourth month, and on the sixth day of the month which is called April. 4 Wherefore, meaning the church, thou shalt give heed unto all his words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walki...

Let's glue together parts 1 and 2 of this series. In the movie  Taken,  Liam Neeson utters these iconic words: "I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career." I like the idea of living a life so rich that you can't describe it to anyone who has not lived it. You get it, God gets it, and no one else is in on the joke. I have lived such a life, and I am just getting started. I hope you can say the same. I will not make a list of my "very particular set of skills" here, but I have one, and it is long and eclectic. Oddly so. But God knows what he is doing, and in my particular case, they were all very necessary for what he gifts me in life. One of my weird experiences is that I know what it is like to plant and harvest rye by hand. If I had to guess, I'd confidently say less than 10,000 people in the United States have done this, and maybe less than 1,000. And why would they? A...

What if you lived a life so rich that your name was inadequate to explain who you were? What is in a name? Maybe a rose is still a rose by any other name, but what if what a rose was all about wasn't obvious from looking at it? What if the name was necessary to tell you something about it you would not otherwise know?  There are people so rich in character and life experience that you have no hope of knowing them, unless you have lived by their side their whole lives. Jesus is the archetype of this kind of person, but there are a surprising number of lesser examples. These are real people, but we will just use movie examples to stick to a common language: The betrayed general in “Gladiator” describes himself in the famous line: "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions and loyal servant to the true emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Father to a murdered son. Husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this ...

A very brief post that could be much longer. One of my ever-present goals with students was to help them see more of their incredible potential. One effective tool for this was using a simple thought experiment to prove to them that they were unique, no matter how normal they presumed themselves to be. (In case you care, this was extremely relevant in a class on digital entrepreneurship, where a crucial question was "what are you going to do to help others that has not already been done, and how are you going to do it, when no one else has been able to?") I would ask them a series of questions: - Where were you born? How many people were born in that state who are presently alive? - What is an experience you have had that has been pivotal in your life? How many people have had that experience? - What special expertise might you have had? ... ...you get the picture. Then I would briefly recap how the probability of several things co-occuring is computed by multiplying the perc...

I'm sorry that I was unable to post this until the day of the election. Whether it affects your vote before the deadline is less important than whether it affects your heart before your deadline. We read of captain Moroni: Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men. (Alma 48:17) What made him special? 11 And Moroni was a strong and a mighty man; he was a man of a perfect understanding; yea, a man that did not delight in bloodshed; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and the freedom of his country, and his brethren from bondage and slavery; 12 Yea, a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God, for the many privileges and blessings which he bestowed upon his people; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people. 13 Yea, and he was a man who wa...

I own the copyright of all the materials I produce, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Increasingly, people are sharing these materials in ways I have not authorized without asking me. Please do: I give all people everywhere unrestricted permission to: - Share links to the audio and video resources I have posted in the past on this blog and YouTube and the books I sell for print cost on Amazon. You have the right to share PDFs and audio files, but do not repost them publicly, and I would prefer you sharing the link to where I have posted them rather than the content itself, so they know where to find more. - Share brief quotes from anything I've written, so long as they cite the quote. Providing links back to the original postings is helpful. Please do not: I do not give anyone permission to: - Mirror (repost) the audio, video, or PDF resources I have created. - Make new audio recordings of any of the text I have published. - Publish any transcriptions of any of the videos I post...