Thinking All the Day

Recently, in a group I am a part of we discussed the fallibility of prophets. Here are some bullet points of my take away of the discussion: The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that “a prophet [is] a prophet only when he [is] acting as such." ( 1 ) Also this scripture was shared from Deuteronomy 18:12 "When a  prophet   speaketh  in the name of the  Lord , if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that  is  the thing which the  Lord  hath not spoken,  but  the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously:" ( 2 )  From the quote and this scripture we know that prophets can and will make mistakes. "The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest” ( 3 )  From this quote we learn that it is our responsibility as members to seek the Holy Ghost in confirming if what...

Thanks to sickness and other ailments I am a bit behind in everything but still wanted to record my thoughts on Luke chapter one, where Zacharias praises God for sending Jesus. He says something that really stood out to me in verse 74: " That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without  fear " Fear is a big part of my life. Too often I do things because I fear the result if I do not do them. Growing up I had a lot of fears in a lot of different ways. I was afraid to talk because I was afraid people would make fun of me. I was afraid to make mistakes because I was afraid that would mean I was doomed to not live with God. I was also afraid to make mistakes because I was afraid of disappointing people or causing people to get angry. I was afraid of water because I was afraid of dying in the water and dying was scary because I did  not know if I would really be with God or in some kind of hell. I still have simi...

Last night I couldn't sleep. There was a lot on my mind, as always, and one of the thing was this quote that I've seen shared a lot on social media from the Come Follow Me lesson for this week: "Perhaps you know people who never seem to lose their faith, no matter what happens in their lives. They may remind you of the five wise virgins in the Savior’s parable (see  Matthew 25:1–13 ). What you may not see are their diligent efforts to strengthen their testimonies of the truth. We must all seek diligently to strengthen our testimonies because, as the foolish virgins learned, we cannot borrow conversion from anyone else." It is totally and completely true that diligent efforts to strengthen your testimony can help you not loose your faith and can strengthen your faith. I get that is what they are saying here, and I believe that is true. At the same time, this quote pulls on my heartstrings a bit because for anyone who is working their little Mormon tail off...