Wisdom from my Missionary Trainer

Words of wisdom from my greenie (a new mormon missionary) days.
"Commandment #11: Don't be a Prick!"
"The covenants we take in the temple are serious, everything else is a joke."

I also enjoyed Michael Thoming's recent post about war.

I offer my prayers for the security and safe return of all those who serve in our armed forces. These brave men and women deserve our support as they put their lives in jeopardy to satisfy the demands of the warlike people that we have become.

In 1976 Spencer W. Kimball said:
"We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:

“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

“That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:44–45.)"

the full text of his remarks can be found here -http://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/06/the-false-gods-we-worship?lang=eng

It is not their wickedness, but their "misery", not the disobedience, but their "suffering," that elicits the God of Heaven's tears.  Not until Gethsemane and Golgotha does the scriptural redord reveal so unflinchingly the costly investment of God's love in His people, the price at which He placed His heart upon them.  There could be nothing in this universe, or in any possible universe, more perfectly good, absolutely beautiful, worthy of adoration, and deserving of emulation, than this God of love and kindness and vulnerability   That is why a gesture of belief in His direction, a decision to acknowledge His virtues as the paramount qualities of a divided universe  is a response to the best in us, the best and noblest of which the human soul is capable.  A God without body or parts is conceivable.  But a God without passions would engender in our hearts neither love nor interest.  In the vision of Enoch, we fine ourselves drawn to a God who prevents all the pai He can, assumes all the suffering He can, and weeps over the misery He can neither prevent nor assume.

---The God who Weeps

It is not their wickedness, but their "misery," not their disobedience, but their "suffering," that elicits the God of Heaven's tears.  Not until Gethsemane and Golgotha does the scriptural record reveal so unflinchingly the costly investment of God's love in His people, the price at which He placed His heart upon them.

--The God who Weeps, pg. 25

Its comforting to me to know that my sorrows can be signs that I care and not warnings that I've erred.