When we speak of reverence, we are talking about much more than mere quietness at our meetings. Reverence is an attitude of mind and heart. It involves a keen sense of God’s majesty and infinite goodness and our unworthiness and our need for Him and His redeeming grace. It includes a profound sense of the sacred and a desire to honor and protect it.
There is an attitudinal and behavioral bridge that we need to build in order for us to draw closer to Him, and thus be ready to return Home—cum laude or summa cum laude—to receive of His loving fullness. We must want to do this more than we want to do anything else. Otherwise, even if we void wickedness, our journey will end in the suburbs, somewhere short of the City of God.
As one who suffered much in a concentration camp, Victor Frankl observed that the one freedom that conditions cannot take from us is our freedom to form a healthy attitude toward those very conditions, grim as those may sometimes be.
President Kimball said, "Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not. "We should be able to understand this, because we can realize how unwise it would be for us to shield our children from all effort, from disappointments, temptations, sorrows, and suffering. . . . If we looked at mortality as the whole of existence, then pain, sorrow, failure, and short life would be calamity. But if we look upon life as an eternal thing stretching far into the pre-earth past and on into the eternal post-death future, then all happenings may be put in proper perspective."
Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote, "No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted." Such cosmic conservation! He continues, "It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God." (Ibid., p. 4.)
Everything depends on the attitude of the artist toward his subject. It is the one great essential.
Generally speaking, we respond to others' way of being toward us rather than to their behavior.
No one can force a warring heart upon us. When our hearts go to war, we ourselves have chosen it.
Through Jesus Christ and His atoning sacrifice, we can experience a mighty change of mind and heart, bringing a fresh attitude, both toward God and toward life in general.
A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness.
Persons facing difficult choices may not fully appreciate how much their own attitude interferes with the decision they need to make or the action they need to take.
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.”
The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think, say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill...The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we embrace for that day. We cannot change our past..we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes.
Our Heads Are Round so Our Thoughts Can Change Direction
For success, attitude is equally as important as ability.
Man's attitude is the secret of life, for it is upon man's attitude that success and failure depend. Both man's rise and fall depend upon his attitude.
I discovered a new thing in the Lord's Prayer that kind of hit me. "on earth as it is heaven" to me it means whatever you take out into the world is what you're going to draw out. like those days when you're all yang and no yin, and you're fighting with people inside, and you can't calm yourself down, and suddenly you're pulled over by the cops. everything goes wrong in the same day because you created it. so, if you get heaven within you, it'll be all around you. if hell is within you, it'll be around you. it's always created here first.
Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.
Our thoughts limit what we're capable of doing. There are external forces arrayed against us, but there are also internal forces that sabotage us before we even get started. Our mind is good at setting us up for failure and getting us to think small. But I have found that we will do for love that which we don't think is possible. So the question to ask ourselves is "What do I love?"
So much in life depends on our ATTITUDE. The way we choose to see things and respond to others makes all the difference.
When we speak of reverence, we are talking about much more than mere quietness at our meetings. Reverence is an attitude of mind and heart. It involves a keen sense of God’s majesty and infinite goodness and our unworthiness and our need for Him and His redeeming grace. It includes a profound sense of the sacred and a desire to honor and protect it.
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