Measuring Up...Time and Preparation

Time

To everything there is a season...Yes, a season to be young and doing the inimitable things of youth and a time to be relishing in the richness and understanding that maturity brings.  But some people's timing is off.  They marry when they're supposed to be having fun and have "fun" when they're supposed to be married...They learn to cook after they're married and study the scriptures when they arrive in the mission field...or learn to behave properly after they've been embarrassed in a social situation...or value gospel principles after they've suffered the pangs of repentance.  Personal timing should be clocked because there is a time to every purpose under the heaven.  ~Elaine Cannon


Material objectives consume too much of our attention.  The struggle for what we need or for more than we need exhausts our time and energy.  We pursue pleasure or entertainment, or become overinvolved in associations or civic matters.  Of course, people need recreation, need to be achieving, need to contribute; but if these come at the cost of friendship with Christ, the price is much too high.

'For my people have committed two evils,' said the Lord to Israel; 'they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.' (Jer. 2:13)

The substitutions we fashion to take the place of God in our lives truly hold no water.  To the measure we thus refuse the 'living water,' we miss the joy we could have.  ~Elder Marion D. Hanks, (Ensign, July 1972, 105). 


These are essential things which must be done before nonessential things.  These are simple, indispensable practices that almost seem mundane.  ...No one can do these things for us--these are personal practices and habits that set us apart as strong and immovable for that which is correct.  ~Julie B. Beck Relief Society general president, ("What Latter-day Saint Women Do Best:  Stand Strong and Immovable," Ensign, 11/07)

Preparation

Some of the brethren...approached [President Wilford Woodruff] and ... inquired of him as to when he felt the end would be--when would be the coming of the Master?  These, I think, are not his exact words, but they convey the spirit of his reported reply:  'I would live as if it were to be tomorrow--but I am still planting cherry trees!'  I think we may well take this as a page for our own book and live as if the end might be tomorrow--and still plant cherry trees!  In worrying about things that are beyond our reach, we should not overlook our opportunities with our own families and friends; in worrying about possible eventualities we should not neglect the things that need to be done here and now, and that are within our reach.  ~Elder Richard L. Evans, (Conference Report, Apr. 1950, 105-6)



Measuring Up: Integrity Quotes
Measuring Up: Improvement Quotes
Measuring Up: Testimony Quotes
Measuring Up: Service and Empathy Quotes
Measuring Up: Sabbath Quotes