Neal A. Maxwell
God does not begin by asking our ability, only our availability, and if we prove our dependability, He will increase our capability.Collection: God
Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.Collection: Courage
God does not begin by asking us about our ability, but only about our availability, and if we then prove our dependability, he will increase our capability.Collection: Availability
How can you and I really expect to glide naively through life, as if to say, 'Lord, give me experience, but not grief, not sorrow, not pain, not opposition, not betrayal, and certainly not to be forsaken. Keep from me, Lord, all those experiences which made Thee what Thou art! Then, let me come and dwell with Thee and fully share Thy joy!'Collection: Life
If, in the end, you have not chosen Jesus Christ it will not matter what you have chosen.Collection: Jesus
In conclusion, the submission of one's will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God's altar. The many other things we 'give,' brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God's will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!Collection: Brother
It is our job to lift others up, not to size them up.Collection: Jobs
Long ago when a child lay in a manger, a special star appeared. It didn't just show up that evening. It had to have been placed in its orbit centuries before in a trajectory that would make it appear at that special moment of time to announce the birth of a special child. Just as there is divine design in the universe, so each of us has been placed in our own orbits in this life to love, to serve, to help light the world.Collection: Christmas
The soul is like a violin string: it makes music only when it is stretched.Collection: Soul
Trials and tribulations tend to squeeze the artificiality out of us, leaving the essence of what we really are and clarifying what we really yearn for.Collection: Essence
I fear that, as conditions worsen, many will react to the failures of too much government by calling for even more government. Then there will be more and more lifeboats launched because fewer and fewer citizens know how to swim. Unlike some pendulums, political pendulums to not swing back automatically; they must be pushed. History is full of instances when people have waited in vain for pendulums to swing back.Collection: Government
The more seriously we work on our own imperfections, the less we are judgemental of the imperfections of others.Collection: Imperfection
During our mortal schooling in submissiveness, we will see the visible crosses that some carry, but other crosses will go unseen. A few individuals may appear to have no trials at all, which, if it were so, would be a trial in itself. Indeed, if, as do trees, our souls had rings to measure the years of greatest personal growth, the wide rings would likely reflect the years of greatest moisture-but from tears, not rainfall.Collection: Adversity
Time is clearly not our natural dimension. Thus it is that we are never really at home in time. Alternately, we find ourselves wishing to hasten the passage of time or to hold back the dawn. We can do neither, of course, but whereas the fish is at home in water, we are clearly not at home in time--because we belong to eternity.Collection: Time
Patience is tied very closely to faith in our Heavenly Father. Actually, when we are unduly impatient, we are suggesting that we know what is best—better than does God. Or, at least, we are asserting that our timetable is better than His. We can grow in faith only if we are willing to wait patiently for God's purposes and patterns to unfold in our lives, on His timetable.Collection: God
Men's and nations' finest hour consist of those moments when extraordinary challenge is met by extraordinary response. Hence in those darkest hours, we must light our individual candles rather than vying with others to call attention to the enveloping darkness. Our indignation about injustice should lead to illumination, for if it does not, we are only adding to the despair-and the moment of gravest danger is when there is so little light that darkness seems normal!Collection: Men
Satan delights to have us put ourselves down. Self-contempt is of Satan. There is no such thing in heaven.Collection: Self Esteem
A society which permits anything will eventually lose everything.Collection: Permit
Sometimes the best people... have the worst experiences... because they are ready to learnCollection: People
Joshua didn't say choose you next year whom you will serve; he spoke of "this day," while there is still daylight and before the darkness becomes more and more normal.Collection: Courage
It is extremely important for you to believe in yourselves not only for what you are now but for what you have the power to become. Trust in the Lord as He leads you along. He has things for you to do that you won't know about now but that will unfold later. If you stay close to Him, You will have some great adventures. You will live in a time where instead of sometimes being fulfilled, many of them will actually be fulfilled. The Lord will unfold your future bit by bit.Collection: Believe
We cannot lead or draw others to Christ unless we stand closer to Him than they do.Collection: Christ
We can tell much by what we have already willing discarded along the pathway of discipleship. It is the only pathway where littering is permissible, even encouraged. In the early stages, the debris left behind includes the grosser sins of commission. Later debris differs; things begin to be discarded which have caused the misuse or underuse of our time and talent.Collection: Pathways
Faith in God includes Faith in God's timing.Collection: Faith In God
In Gospel grammar, death is not an exclamation point, merely a comma.Collection: Exclamation Points
Beware not to get caught up in the thick of thin things.Collection: Caught
It is extremely important for you to believe in yourselves, not only for what you are now, but for what you have the power to become.Collection: Inspirational
No love is ever wasted. Its worth does not lie in reciprocity.Collection: Lying
These really are our days, and we can prevail and overcome, even in the midst of trends that are very disturbing. If we are faithful the day will come when those deserving pioneers and ancestors, whom we rightly praise for having overcome the adversities in the wilderness trek, will praise today’s faithful for having made their way successfully through a desert of despair and for having passed through a cultural wilderness, while still keeping the faith.Collection: Adversity
Never give up what you want most for what you want today.Collection: Fitness
Do not let the future be held hostage by the pastCollection: Future
The hardest work you and I will ever do is to put off our selfishness. It is heavy lifting!Collection: Selfishness
If we spent as much time lifting our children as we do criticizing them, how effectively we could help them to see themselves in a more positive light!Collection: Time
Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus!Collection: Jesus
We cannot repent for someone else. But we can forgive someone else, refusing to hold hostage those whom the Lord seeks to set free!Collection: Forgiving
If we are serious about our discipleship, Jesus will eventually request each of us to do those very things which are most difficult for us to do.Collection: Jesus
Though we live in a failing world, we have not been sent here to fail.Collection: World
When our minds really catch hold of the significance of Jesus' atonement, the world's hold on us loosens.Collection: Jesus
If the kingdom of God is not first, it doesn't matter what's second.Collection: Kingdoms
Listening is one of the forms of love.Collection: Listening
I have on my office wall a wise and useful reminder by Anne Morrow Lindbergh concerning one of the realities of life. She wrote, "My life cannot implement in action the demands of all the people to whom my heart responds." That's good counsel for us all, not as an excuse to forgo duty, but as a sage point about pace and the need for quality in relationships.Collection: Wise
The Lord doesn't ask about your ability, only your availability; and, if you prove your dependability, the Lord will increase your capability.Collection: Availability
The cavity which suffering carves into our souls will one day also be the receptacle of joy.Collection: Joy
Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"Collection: Fighting
Our inspired Constitution is wisely designed to protect from excesses of political power, but it can do little to protect us from the excesses of appetite or from individual indifference to great principles or institutions. Any significant unraveling of the moral fiber of the American people, therefore, finally imperils the Constitution.Collection: Moral Fiber
When we rejoice in beautiful scenery, great art, and great music, it is but the flexing of instincts acquired in another place and another time.Collection: Music
Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God's relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us.Collection: Love
As parenting declines, the need for policing increases. There will always be a shortage of police if there is a shortage of effective parents! Likewise, there will not be enough prisons if there are not enough good homes.Collection: Home
In a very real sense, all we need to know is that God knows all.Collection: Real
Let us have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash.Collection: Integrity