Lectures on Obedience

June 12, 2022 by

David Aubril is a French teacher, fond of didactics, literature, UNIX systems and free diving (with no order of preference). He follows with great interest the contemporary debates on Gospel and Church matters, but from afar, from “the other side of the water”, as Pascal says.

When I was in high school, my reading of Pascal’s Thoughts and my friendship with a Latter-day Saint classmate made me wonder about the existence of God. The answers I found in the Bible and the Book of Mormon gave me a deep desire to obey His commandments.

Despite the incomprehension of many relatives, I was baptized and went on a mission. When I got home, I went back to the studies I had left for a while and got married.

My wife and I firmly believed in the promises repeated in the Book of Mormon: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land” (2 Nephi 4:4). We were confident that our obedience would enable us to obtain the blessing of an eternal family.

It is difficult to express how affected we were when a series of trials shook our home. Not only was our dream collapsing, but our certainties were shattered.

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Waves of Adversity

February 10, 2016 by

Christian Harrison is a long-time friend of the blog, and we’re glad to feature this guest post from him.

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Earlier this month, I taught a lesson on adversity that was largely based on Chapter 3 of “Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Howard W. Hunter.” The following essay approximates my lesson.

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In today’s Sacrament meeting, a story was shared by the speaker about a discussion he had with a professor of his from the Religion Department at BYU: “What,” he recalled asking his mentor, “did it all mean?” With the succinctness of hindsight, the professor replied, “I can sum it all up with one word: obedience.”

I have to admit that I cringed when I heard that. I think the Lord would have something to say to that professor about “what it all means” and how best to “sum it all up.”

Then one of [the Pharisees], which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” [And] Jesus said unto him, “‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.’—this is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35–40)

Love. Love of God… and love of all mankind, because God is Love (1 John 4:8). [Read more…]

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Bishop Caussé’s Invitation to Attention and the Question of Grace #LDSConf

April 5, 2015 by

Bishop Caussé opens his talk with a stunning acknowledgement about failing to pay attention: his family lived in Paris for 22 years without ever making time to visit the Eiffel Tower! Similarly, he suggests, we can all too easily miss occasions for spiritual wonder all around us. In a monitory tone, he says:

Our ability to marvel is fragile. Over the long term, such things as casual commandment-keeping, apathy, or even weariness may set in and make us insensitive to the most remarkable signs and miracles of the gospel.

Later, he quotes Marcel Proust by way of inviting us to undertake a wondrous spiritual journey made possible by the simple mechanism of paying attention: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” This quote marvelously captures both the “renewing of [the] mind” that Paul makes a consequence of grace and the spiritual riches that await those with eyes to see and ears to hear.
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Filed Under: Comparative/Ecumenical, General Conference Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,