Today's Maxwell Quote

From Wherefore Ye Must Press Forward:

Being steadfast includes relentless resistance to such vices as pride; it also includes resisting the growing indifference to integrity in the world.

The road and path of integrity has infinite intersections each requiring decisions, each requiring the manifestation of our integrity. Integrity is more easily maintained when the tradition of following proper counsel and directions is strong enough within the person that it draws upon the power of habit.

President Joseph F. Smith has called on us to educate our very desires. This is wise counsel, for nothing interrupts steadfastness like catering to our selfish desires.

William Law said, "Now all trouble and uneasiness is founded in the want of something or other; would we therefore know the true cause of our troubles and disquiet, we must find out the cause of our wants; because that which creates, and increases our wants, does in the same degree create, and increase our trouble and disquiets. . . . The man of pride has a thousand wants, which only his pride has created; and these render him as full of trouble, as if God had created him with a thousand appetites, without creating anything that was proper to satisfy them."

Charles Wagner warned, "Let your needs rule you; pamper them, and you will see them multiply like insects in the sun. The more you give them, the more they demand."

The justice of God permits no special deal for disciples. We must subdue our selfishness; we must endure the pain of prioritizing. We must cope with the variables of the second estate. There can be no later outcry by the nonbelievers that they were ultimately deprived of an equal chance to believe and to follow. For disciples there is no spiritual equivalent to the "prime rate" or the "most-favored nation" clause. Blessings come the same way to all—by obedience to the laws on which these blessings are predicated, and in no other way. (D&C 130:20.)

The disciple must, therefore, be careful about confusing announcements of intentions with accomplishments as far as his progress on the path is concerned.