“God’s work is therefore first and foremost educative and constructive, not reparative. Life is pain, but it is not punishment.”
Nature of God
LDS Quotes on the Nature of God
At some point, God will ask you to sacrifice on his altar, not only your stories about your own life, but your version of his stories as well. Your softly lit watercolor felt-board version of scripture stories and church history must, like all your stories, be abandoned at his feet, and the messy, vibrant, and inconvenient truths that characterize God’s real work with real people will have to take center stage. If they don’t, then how will God’s work in your hungry messy, and inconvenient life ever do the same?
When God knocks, don’t creep to the door and look through the peephole to see if he looks like you thought he would. Rush to the door and throw it open.
| Letters to a Young Mormon By Adam Miller
“If God deprives His children of any present blessing, it is so that He may bestow upon them a greater and more glorious one by and by.”
“Personality patterns, habits, strengths, and weaknesses observed by God over a long period of time in the pre-mortal world would give God a perfect understanding of what we would do under a given set of circumstances to come.”
John learned that God glorified Himself by saving all that His hands had made, whether beasts, fowls, fishes or men; and He will glorify Himself with them.
| Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 291
“Because our lives are foreseen by God, he is never surprised by developments within our lives. The sudden loss of health, wealth, self-esteem, status, or a loved one – developments that may stun us – are foreseen by God, though not necessarily caused by him.”
“It has sometimes been asked whether God commands certain things because they are right, or whether certain things are right because God commands them…I empathically embrace the first alternative. The second might lead to the abominable conclusion that charity is good only because God arbitrarily commanded it — that He might equally well have commanded us to hate Him and one another and that hatred would then have been right. I believe, on the contrary, that ‘they err who think that of the will of God to do this or that there is no reason besides His will.'”
“No doctrine is more basic, no doctrine embraces a greater incentive to personal righteousness . . . as does the wondrous concept that man can be as his Maker.”
| The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ
“My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. Indeed it is only with that reassurance burning in our soul that we can have the confidence to keep trying to improve, keep seeking forgiveness for our sins, and keep extending that grace to our neighbor.”
| “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You”
“God, our Father; Jesus, our Elder Brother and our Redeemer; and the Holy Ghost, the Testator, are perfect. They know us best and love us most and will not leave one thing undone for our eternal welfare.”