Quotes by authors Terryl and Fiona Givens
“A counselor in the First Presidency, J. Reuben Clark Jr. testified of his belief that we do not ‘seal our eternal progress by what we do here. It is my belief that God will save all of His children that he can: and while, if we live unrighteously here, we shall not go to the other side in the same status, so to speak, as those who lived righteously; nevertheless, the unrighteous will have their chance, and in the eons of the eternities that are to follow, they, too, may climb to the destinies to which they who are righteous and serve God have climbed.'”
“We feel innately there should be a correlation between our worth and our reward. Before we can even put language to the intuitive concepts we feel, we sense a value we learn to call ‘fairness’…If we resent it when others receive more than their just desserts, it may be because we feel that our happiness is somehow compromised, cheapened, diluted, if our reward isn’t greater than the other, undeserving, person’s. This is in fact selfishness masquerading as high-minded virtue.”
Nikolai Berdyaev taught the same principle:
“A false interpretation of ‘good works’ leads to a complete perversion of Christianity. ‘Good works’ are regarded not as an expression of love for God and man, not as a manifestation of the gracious source that gives life to others, but as a means of salvation and justification for oneself, as a way of realizing the abstract idea of the Good and receiving a reward in the future life. ‘Good works,’ done not for the good of others, but for the good of one’s own soul, are not good at all. Where there is no love, there is no goodness. Love does not require or expect any reward, it is reward in itself, it is a ray of paradise illuminating and transfiguring reality.”
“We want a script, and we find we stand before a blank canvas. We expect a road map, and we find we have only a compass. We have yet to learn, as the poet John Ciardi wrote, that ‘clean white paper, waiting under a pen, is a gift beyond human history and hurt and heaven.”
“Elder James E. Talmage wrote in the first edition of the Church-published Articles of Faith, ‘Advancement from grade to grade within any kingdom, and from kingdom to kingdom, will be provided for. Eternity is progression.’ He later elaborated, no man will be detained in the lower regions ‘longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for something better. When he reaches that stage the doors will open and there will be rejoicing among the hosts who welcome him into a better state.'”
“A zero-sum game is one in which there is a fixed number of resources, and one can only acquire more if someone else receives less. Any benefit won by me can only come at a cost to you…
“Happiness is not a zero-sum game, but our telestial instincts lead us to act and think as if it were. Human psychology seems indelibly conditioned to measure our well-being by comparison with our neighbor. To a disappointing degree, we assess our own happiness by measuring our conditions and circumstances against those of others. What makes me feel rich or fortunate or successful is not an absolute quantity; it is more often the sense that I am richer or more fortunate or more successful than my neighbor or colleague.”
“Healing seldom comes in an instant, with one decisive choice or one divine ministration. That is a function of our mortal limitations, not the Healer’s. Divine mercy, like the Sun, ‘must dazzle gradually or every man be blind.’
“The novelist Marilynne Robinson also saw judgment in more compassionate terms. She wrote: ‘The reaction of God to us might be thought of as aesthetic rather than morally judgmental.’ God wants us to live beautiful lives.”
“As Joseph reminded his followers, ‘I believe that God foreknew everything, but did not foreordain everything.’ Exaltation, is within the reach of all, even if the journey toward that divine end is fraught with suffering. If we had insurance against a painful journey, one-third of the heavenly hosts would not have abandoned the enterprise. The risks are real. Or, in the language of the Book of Mormon, we cannot assume that our afflictions come from God, but we can know that ‘God shall consecrate [our] afflictions for [our] gain.'”