“Whatever is good in any circumstances we must thank Him for; whatever is hard we must accept as His will and try to learn from.”
On the eve of Thanksgiving, I wanted to share a quick thought.
Thanksgiving isn't just for "counting your blessings" and being grateful for all of the good things in our life. Real gratitude is not selective. Thank God for the bitter things as well as the sweet. The grateful person thanks God for everything that comes from His hand, because everything (even the painful) is being used for our eternal good and His glory. So this year, I’m learning to say thank You for both the feast and the famine, the laughter and the tears, the triumphs and the failures, and the joy and the pain.
Sidenote: I wanted to share the lyrics to song I heard on the radio as I was driving into work this morning: Selected Lyrics from the song: "I Need You" by Jet Trouble
God, please help remind me of the things I cannot see
When I'm broken down, defeated, believing lies from the enemy
God, please help remind me of the day death lost its sting
That I know You have a plan in the midst of suffering
I need You to make things whole
I've been lost, Lord, search my soul
I need You to be so close
I felt numb and can't take much more
I've witnessed things I can't explain
I know He's good, He's never changed
But life is hard and full of pain
Come and do work in me, come and do work
Speak life to the broken things
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Sidenote:
This past week, a close friend of mine led a lesson/discussion. I wasn’t able to attend, but he sent me the handout. It contained a lot of quotes that I think are very important that I need to remember in my own life. The topic was “Covenant Christian Conduct.” Here are a few of them:
Four Things You Must Never Do
“There are four things you must never do. Joseph Smith separately discusses four things. The first, of course, is “to aspire.” Satan aspired, and that was his undoing. Never aspire and never be ambitious. You don’t aspire in this world if you’re going to get anything you want in the next. Never accuse. Of course, Satan is “the accuser.” The word diabolus from which the name devil comes means accuser. He is called “the accuser of his brethren” in the scriptures. Adam said to Satan, “I will not bring a railing accusation against thee. Let God judge between me and thee.” Adam would not accuse Satan after what Satan had done to him, you see. So we don’t accuse anybody, no matter how guilty they are. Then you do not contend. The first thing the Lord says to the Nephites is there shall be no more contentions among you as there have been. This is my gospel that there shall be no contentions. All contention shall cease, for contention is not of me, but all contention is of the devil who stirreth up the children of men to anger to bloodshed and things like that [paraphrased]. So we never contend and never coerce, if that’s the case. And those are the four things that everybody wants to do today. Everybody is aspiring to high office, and everybody accuses in order to get it. Everybody contends; it’s a very contentious world we live in, a competitive world. And we back it all up in the end; the bottom line is force. We have to have the force, coercion. We have all four things.” Hugh Nibley (1993), Teachings of the Book of Mormon: Semester 1; Lecture 21: 2 Nephi 25–28 - Nephi’s Prophecy of Our Times.
“There are a few absolute and categorical ‘Thou shalt nots’ in the scriptures which we are far from taking to heart. We have been told that under no circumstances are we to contend, accuse, coerce, aspire, or flatter. These practices will be readily recognized as standard procedure in getting to the top in our modern competitive society. What all of them have in common is a feeling of self-righteousness.” Hugh Nibley (1974), Brigham Young and the Enemy, 2:7.
