Apparent contradictions between religion and science often have been the basis of bitter controversy. Such differences are to be expected as long as human understanding remains provisional and fragmentary.
— Henry B. Eyring
The more I try to unravel the mysteries of the world in which we live, the more I come to the conception of a single overruling power - God.
God will use us for his purposes, but it takes a certain kind of listening.
For one who feels compelled, as I do, to accept the existence of the Master Architect, it is important to examine his handiwork for the light it throws on him and on his program for his children. For me, there has been no serious difficulty in reconciling the principles of true science with the principles of true religion.
When I was a little child, my parents taught me by example to pray. I began with a picture in my mind of Heavenly Father being far away. As I have matured, my experience with prayer has changed. The picture in my mind has become one of a Heavenly Father who is close by, who is bathed in a bright light, and who knows me perfectly.
Let us do whatever is required to qualify for the Holy Ghost as our companion and then let us go forward fearlessly so that we will be given the powers to do whatever the Lord calls us to do.
One of the blessings that comes from paying a full tithing is developing faith to live an even higher law. To live in the celestial kingdom, we must live the law of consecration. There we must be able to feel that all we are and all we have belong to God.
What all of us long for in our hearts, at Christmastime and always, is to feel bound together in love with the sweet assurance that it can last forever.
The enemy of human happiness as well as the cause of poverty and starvation is not the birth of children. It is the failure of people to do with the earth what God could teach them to do if only they would ask and then obey, for they are agents unto themselves.
The Savior will help you do what He has called you to do, be it for a time as a worker in the Church or forever as a parent. You may pray for help enough to do the work and know that it will come.
If you reflect often on how His Atonement has changed you, and if you give thanks often, you will find that your witness of Him gains power to touch the hearts of others. When those you invite out of your own testimony feel that witness, they will come to accept Him as their Lord and Savior.
Tragedy, loss, and hurt often arrive unanticipated. How we react when we are surprised will tell our families whether what we have taught and testified lies deep in our hearts.
If we look for human frailty in humans, we will always find it. When we focus on finding the frailties of those who hold priesthood keys, we run risks for ourselves. When we speak or write to others of such frailties, we put them at risk.
The words of confirmation into the Church are an invitation: 'Receive the Holy Ghost.' And that choice must be made not once, but every day, every hour, every minute.
Those who submit like a child do it because they know that the Father wants only the happiness of His children and that only He knows the way. That is the testimony we must have to keep praying like a submissive child, in the good times as well as the times of trouble.
A little prosperity and peace, or even a turn slightly for the better, can bring us feelings of self-sufficiency. We can feel quickly that we are in control of our lives, that the change for the better is our own doing, not that of a God who communicates to us through the still, small voice of the Spirit.
The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ, and we learn about Him in its pages. We know that it has great power. It has the power to change lives. It has the power to convert. If you read it with an open heart, you will know that it is the word of God and that it is true.
I would write a scientific paper with the devil, if it was on high temperatures. The fellow's probably an authority.
Death is not the end; it is but one more step in a great forward march made possible by the redemption wrought by the Savior. This is the spirit of true science - constant and eternal seeking.
Some people conclude that the injustices existing in the world prove there is no God. On the contrary, I conclude that God, being both just and merciful, will and can rectify all inequities in a life after death.
Our understanding, great as it sometimes seems, can be nothing but the wide-eyed wonder of the child when measured against omniscience.
Most people stop learning out of fear. They are afraid they cannot learn.
The Lord is anxious to lead us to the safety of higher ground, away from the path of physical and spiritual danger. His upward path will require us to climb.
Carrying a grudge is a heavy burden. As you forgive, you will feel the joy of being forgiven.
No one who strives with full faith and heart for the blessings of eternal life will be denied. And how great will be the joy and how much deeper the appreciation then after enduring in patience and faith now.
The family unit is fundamental not only to society and to the Church, but to our hope for eternal life.
'You better do a lot of praying' is good counsel for all of the Lord's servants, new or seasoned. It is what His wise servants do. They pray. The disciples of Jesus Christ when He lived on the earth noticed that about Him.
The words 'come unto Christ' are an invitation. It is the most important invitation you could ever offer to another person. It is the most important invitation anyone could accept.
To keep ourselves grounded in the Lord's Church, we can and must train our eyes to recognize the power of the Lord in the service of those He has called. We must be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. And we need to pray for the Holy Ghost to help us know that men who lead us hold this power.
The Savior warns that if we start along the path and go far enough and then fail and deny Him, it would have been better if we had never begun.
The Holy Ghost is a comforter and a guide. But it is also a cleansing agent. That is why service in the kingdom is so crucial to enduring. When we are called to serve, we can pray for the Holy Ghost to be our companion with assurance it will come.
We are spirit children of a loving Heavenly Father who placed us in mortality to see if we would choose - freely choose - to keep His commandments and come unto His Beloved Son. They do not compel us. They cannot, for that would interfere with the plan of happiness. And so there is in us a God-given desire to be responsible for our own choices.
We never need feel we are alone or unloved in the Lord's service because we never are. The Savior has promised angels on our left and on our right to bear us up, and he always keeps his word.
The scriptures were one of the ways God spoke to me - even when I was a child - about my needs, my situation, and my life. They still are. Since our needs change over a lifetime, God has different things to tell us at different times.
I perceive myself as rather uninhibited, with a certain mathematical facility and more interest in the broad aspect of a problem than the delicate nuances. I am more interested in discovering what is over the next rise than in assiduously cultivating the beautiful garden close at hand.
I believe that what is really important is that God can speak to us. If we have the humility to approach him in prayer with the right attitude, he can speak to our intelligence directly.
The gospel may not make a sow's ear into a silk purse, but it will make everybody better if they live it. I've tried it. It stands the test.
The Father to whom we pray is the glorious God who created worlds through His Beloved Son.
As a child of God, your destiny, if you work hard enough and are faithful, is to become like Him. That means that there is nothing that is true that you cannot learn, because He knows all truth.
The tithe payer helps the Lord build temples, where families can be sealed forever. The tithe payer helps Him send the gospel to people everywhere. The tithe payer helps Him relieve hunger and suffering in His own way through His servants.
The feeling of longing for home is born into us. That wonderful dream cannot become real without great faith - enough for the Holy Ghost to lead us to repentance, baptism, and the making and keeping of sacred covenants with God. This faith requires enduring bravely the trials of mortal life.
Children are the inheritance of the Lord to us in this life and also in eternity. Eternal life is not only to have forever our descendants from this life. It is also to have eternal increase.
The Savior will let you feel the love He feels for those you serve. The call is an invitation to become like Him.
When you give your heart to inviting people to come unto Christ, your heart will be changed. You will be doing His work for Him. You will find that He keeps His promise to be one with you in your service. You will come to know Him. And in time you will come to be like Him and 'be perfected in him.'
When tragedy strikes, or even when it looms, our families will have the opportunity to look into our hearts to see whether we know what we said we knew. Our children will watch, feel the Spirit confirm that we lived as we preached, remember that confirmation, and pass the story across the generations.
We live in a world where finding fault in others seems to be the favorite blood sport. It has long been the basis of political campaign strategy. It is the theme of much television programming across the world. It sells newspapers. Whenever we meet anyone, our first, almost unconscious reaction may be to look for imperfections.
With faith and obedience practiced long enough, the Holy Ghost becomes a constant companion, our natures change, and endurance becomes certain.
The Lord protects, guides, and watches over those who are His trusted friends in His work. His work and that of His Father and our Father is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of the children of God. And Satan, the enemy of our happiness, opposes those who serve the Lord.
Pride creates a noise within us which makes the quiet voice of the Spirit hard to hear. And soon, in our vanity, we no longer even listen for it. We can come quickly to think we don't need it.
When I am in situations where I break out of the pattern, it's hard on me. Once you get used to regular scripture study, you miss it if you don't have it. It's like food - you have to have it. I know that I need the scriptures like I need food. I don't miss a regular meal, and I don't miss regular scripture study.
