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All is One and One is All
When acknowledged, love authorizes freedom; and freedom begets freedom. Society should be governed by people of virtue who, through personal examples and moral persuasion rather than law or punishment, bring out the people’s welfare and social order. If a ruler applies his or her originally humane mind to the administration of government, we will have a humane government. However, since some people have an evil nature, we need rulers to regulate them by law and teachers to guide society by the rule of propriety and righteousness so we can have a well-ordered society. God promises that out of suffering, sorrow, and sadness that joy will come. Sometimes we cannot understand that mortal suffering can bring eternal blessings. The Son of God promised deliverance from the chains of death, and declaring liberty to the captives who have been faithful. We should not blame God for our sufferings nor assume we know the cause of another’s suffering. Suffering is not always bad, as it will allow us to develop strength and will not exceed our ability to endure to the end. When we are experiencing misery, we tend to look for things that will bring us joy. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
A person must earn their freedom daily, or one will become a slave in some form or another: and the way to earn it is by work and obedience to right direction. Like every other privilege, the liberty of the press must be restrained within certain bounds; for if it is carried to a breach of law, religion, and charity, it becomes one of the greatest evils that ever annoyed the community. Sometimes people hurt the people they know because they cannot hurt a stranger as much as they can a loved one. People who know you know just what to do to hurt their companions, parents, or brothers and sisters. They know just where their loved ones are vulnerable. They know just how you can be hurt the most by their actions. To many, it seems to be a test of faith in life to be wounded by those closest to us. However, is it not true that God, our Father, and his Son grieve when we sin? When we fail to be obedient and accept the atoning sacrifice of our Lord, are we not hurting him who loves us most? More bounteous run rivers when the ice that locked their flow melts into their waters. And when fine natures relent their kindness is swelled by the thaw. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
The test of suffering can dim our eyes, but we also realize the joy we will receive when we receive perfect immortal bodies. Also, our joy of service in helping others we love in time of need brings us greater appreciation for one another. If the jaws of Hell shall gape open the mouth wide after you, know that the Son of God will turn all these things you experience into a miraculous blessing. Not only will you survive, but it will also foster the ability to have concern for others while we are suffering. It is a key element in our spiritual growth. Suffering is Universal; how we react to suffering is individual. Suffering can take us one of two ways. It can be a strengthening and purifying experience combined with faith, or it can be a destructive force in our lives if we do not have the faith in the Lord’s atoning sacrifice. Some people are so tired and weak, but have appointments that are mandatory to attend, and the meetings may take a lot out of them. Some days they may even be too weak to drive, but still have to go because their income and house depends on them enduring the suffering. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
When the mind is unperturbed by selfishness or deliberate effort and is left to take its own course, it will reveal its pure nature, and enlightenment will come suddenly. The purpose of suffering, however, is to build and strengthen us. We learn obedience by the things we suffer. We should be humbled and drawn to the Lord. The harmony of the individual and society rests on several basic ideas. Foremost of these is humanity. Humanity is a particular virtue, such as kindness, benevolence, and affection. Humanity is the general virtue, the foundation of all other virtues. Humanity is the moral character developed in oneself and in one’s relations with others. The will of Heaven is that humans should practice humanity and righteousness, be economical, and practice Universal love, and it is our duty as members of the human population to obey the will of Heaven. After a number of mistakes and failures to live as we know we should, we may lose confidence in ourselves and have a poor self-image of who we are and what we are capable of becoming. We may forget that we are children of God and have the potential of dwelling with him and his Son if we accept the Atonement and keep the commandments. By keeping faith in God and living right, this benefits Heaven, spiritual beings, and all humans. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
Ultimately, through the moral principle, Heaven and Earth will attain their proper order and all things will flourish in a harmonious Universal operation. When the individual behaves correctly and society operates in right manner, the way of God is said to prevail. God is moral law and moral order. It is the way of Heaven. Heaven is the origin of all things, the Supreme Reality, whose purposive character is being manifested on Earth. By this time, there is a clear distinction between what is good, correct, or proper and what is evil, incorrect, or improper. The first of the commandments we must keep is to have faith. First, we must gain faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith that he lives. Faith that he hears and answers prayers. Faith that he will forgive us of our transgressions. Faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Why is the Savior’s atonement so important as the central gospel principle in the Church and in our lives? Jesus was born of Heavenly parents in a premortal World—he was the first born of our heavenly Father. Only he could make the atoning sacrifice—having received the power over death from his Father. Eventually, all alternatives will be synthesized so that harmony reigns over conflict and unity exists in multiplicity. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
Jesus Christ overcame death, the grave’s power was nullified, and he became our Savior, Mediator, Master of the Resurrection—a means of salvation and immortality to all of us. We will be resurrected and become immortal because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In the study of the Atonement, most of us have probably asked the question: Why is it so easy for the World to see and believe that in Adam all people died and were cast out from the presence of our Heavenly Father, yet it is so hard for the World to understand how Jesus Christ can bring us back in the same manner? Because people want an excuse to sin, they want someone to blame. However, scriptures are clear on this. For as by one man’s disobedience [Adam] many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. As sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness until eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus will take upon him death, that he may lose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy. Jesus will take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverances. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
The whole focus in one process, order, and laws of operation. Existence is viewed as a dynamic process of change obeying definite laws, following definite patterns, and based on a pre-established harmony. Wherever harmony is sought or change takes place, the forces of God are at work. “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they might not repent, they must suffer even as I.” I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me, confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me; I tremble to know that for me he was crucified, that for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled, and died. I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine to rescue my soul; that he should extend his great love unto such as I, sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify. I think of his body beaten, pierced and bleeding to pay the debt! Such mercy, such love, and devotion can I forget? No, no I will praise and adore at the mercy seat, until at the glorified throne I kneel at his feet. It is my prayer that our sorrow and suffering will strengthen our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that our sorrow shall be turned to joy, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen. The World is in reality a perfect harmony in all its flowery splendor. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
Ignorance and Prejudice are the Only Real Evils
Material force exists after physical form and is therefore with it whereas God exists before form and is therefore without it. Until our minds are blank, naked, and ready to receive the divine revelation on faith alone, our own capacities are so limited and unreliable that it is doubtful that we could really know anything in either the natural or supernatural realm. God’s nature is infinite and therefore surpasses all attempts to define or limit it. Skepticism is a means of destroying the enemies of the true faith while preparing the soul for salvation. No philosophy can ever absolutely hope to reach the truth, for the truth is discovered not necessarily by reasoning, but by some inner light, a kind of feeling (sentiment), perhaps what is called the heart. God is considered to be the form of all being, a view which has been called pantheistic. The sense of individuality induces an absence of all distinct thoughts and feelings, a kind of mystical union with that God who is nature itself. The spirit of life is in all things. This creative quality is the highest good and becomes humanity and love, which makes humans the moral beings that they are. It enables us to embrace all things and Heaven and Earth as one body. May we so live that we may always have the companionship of the Holy Spirit and be blessed by these beautiful spiritual gifts. #RandolphHarris 1 of 12
Being humans, we would expel from our lives physical pain and mental anguish and assure ourselves of continual ease and comfort, but if we were to close the doors upon sorrow and distress, we might be excluding our greatest friends and benefactors. Suffering can make saints of people as they learn patience, long-suffering, and self-mastery. Evil is due not to one’s nature, but to a bad environment, lack of education, and casting oneself away. The superior person is one who develops their mind to the utmost and nourishes one’s nature. The effectual and fervent prayer of a righteous person will avail much. Walk upright before God and you will not be seduced by evil spirits, nor doctrines of devils, nor the commandments of humans; and so, you may not be deceived, seek earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given. Both the one receiving the blessing and the one given it should be in tune with the Spirit through their worthy lives. The accounts of miraculous healing are numerous. They warm one’s soul and give great strength of testimony as to the divinity of this great work. They come by faith, not the will of humans, nor as they please, but by the will of God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 12
How would you like to create your own mind? Is that not what usually happens? The mind is made up by what it feeds upon. The mind, like the dyer’s hand, is colored by what it holds. If I hold in my had a sponge full of blue dye, my hand becomes blue. And if I hold in my mind and heart great ideas of faith and enthusiasm, my whole personality is changed accordingly. If we think negative thoughts, we develop negative minds. On the other hand, if we think celestial thoughts, which are the kind of thoughts that God thinks, then we develop celestial minds. My mind to me is a kingdom, such present joys therein are found, that excels all other bliss that the Earth afford or grows by kind. Perhaps you may not have yet made glorious achievements or articles, but you have the song of love in your heart and mind, so deeply, so unrestrained. Effective mental, physical, and spiritual health is propelled by a consciousness of love and a realization that the Creative Spirit is always at work. We do not have to compel the force to work. It is the nature of the Creative Power to take form, and it is our nature to use it. We develop our own Godliness when we listen to inspiring music, hear sacred prayers, and comfort others, and stimulate ourselves with the greatest idea. For a wise and glorious purpose, God has placed us here on Earth. #RandolphHarris 3 of 12
Just think what would happen in our lives if each of us memorized a good number of poems of love. As I walk through the park each day, the light of love shines on my daily life as the lighting turns the mediocre gullies and lush forests into legendary mirages. And I think to myself: God, thank you for each sight of beauty that your World gives. For sunny skies and air and light. God, I thank you that I live. Some memories are unforgettable, remaining ever vivid and heartwarming. We honor God by making him an intrinsic part of our every thought and action. We honor God through prayer, pure thoughts, clean language, wholesome appearance, service to others, and through striving for the powerful, personal conversation that will help us to withstand the temptations of the day. In addition to being shining examples in our individual lives, let us make sure that we strengthen our houses and families and, at the same time, do all we can to reach out with understanding to encourage and bring blessings into the lives of others. You are the light of the World and a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. #RandolphHarris 4 of 12
One should learn to consider the beautiful soul more valuable than the figure. If one meets a beautiful soul, let your light so shine before others, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. Happiness is not hidden in the satiation, but in the yearning. How far is it from the eyes to the heart? If we live the principles of the gospel, we are the fulfillment of the Savior’s light of the World. And possessing this light, we can shine among our fellow humans through our lives and deeds, influencing them to glorify our Father in Heaven. Jesus wants every one of us to know him because of the transforming power of that knowledge and because of the indescribable joy it brings into our lives. However, the influence of the gospel is to extend beyond each individual. Your love-lit eyes should be like sparking stars, dispelling loneliness from the hearts of others. No one of us is saved solely and simply for oneself alone, just as no chandelier is lighted merely for its own benefit. The state of the World being what it is, we must take advantage of every opportunity to testify of the Savior and teach and exemplify gospel truth, letting his light so shine before friends and strangers alike to perpetuate the truth concerning our Savior, Jesus Christ. #RandolphHarris 5 of 12
Upon us is rich blessings and unbounded love and encouragement. God is wonderful in his design and excellent in his workings. Believer: God overrules all things for your good. The needs-be for all that you have suffered has been most accurately determined by your God. Your course is all mapped out no novelties to him. There will be no occurrences which God did not foresee, and for which, therefore, he has not provided. God has arranged all, and you have but to patiently wait, and you shall sing a song of deliverance. Real satisfaction comes not in understanding God’s motives, but in understanding his character, in trusting in his promises, and in leaning on him and resting in him as the Sovereign who knows what he is doing. The wounds of those who suffer spiritual can be healed when you and I put forth the extra personal effort required to reach out to them. Our lives are touched in an unforgettable way when the love of God is bestowed on us and are especially grateful. The Savior’s touch can reach others through individuals with big hearts. Tears will follow, attitudes will change, directions will become clear, and commitments will be made. Peace will come into your heart. The Master’s touch will fall upon all of us. We can feel the Savior’s touch, and can help others feel that divine touch. We can bless each other by reaching out. We somehow need to realize the vital importance of feeling of the gospel and the peace of the Lord in our lives individually. #RandolphHarris 6 of 12
Many people are very conscious of the needs of others, and cannot do much more. However, let us make the choice never to let a day pass without striving to be a blessing in the life of someone through our service. Some of the sweetest memories of my childhood center in the occasional Summer and Autumn days spent with my parents and siblings at my grandfather’s house in rural North Carolina. There, we enjoyed his yard with fragrant wildflowers. We marveled at the flying squirrels, colorful bird, and occasionally discovered a deer, fox, or pheasant. Meandering stream invited us to catch sunfish, and a cool, pure spring satisfied our thirst. There were roasted hot dogs, potato salad, sweet pickles, and of course hot apple pie with homemade ice cream. Every turn of the crank heightened our anticipation of that seldom-savored treat. Be sure to enjoy the countless edifying experiences, precious wholesome relationships, and wondrous beauties of the Earth the Lord has given for our happiness. You may be tired of others trying to run your life—always telling you what to do. Please understand that no one can change the truth. Rationalization, overpowering self-interest, all of the arguments of people, anger, or self-will cannot change the truth. #RandolphHarris 7 of 12
Satan knows that he cannot change the truth, so he tries to create an atmosphere where one unwittingly beings to feel that he cannot only choose what to do, but can determine what is right to do. Satan strives to persuade us to live outside truth by rationalizing our actions as the right of choice. However, our Eternal Father defined truth and established what is right and wrong before the creation of this Earth. God also fixed the consequences of obedience to those truths. God defended our right to choose our path in life so that we would grow, develop and be happy, but we do not have the right to choose the consequences of our acts. Those who willfully, consistently disobey God’s commandments will inevitably learn that truth. When we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. Please understand, no one has the privilege to choose what is right. God reserved that prerogative to himself. Our agency does allow us to choose among alternate paths, but then we are bound to the consequences God has decreed. Later, if we do not like where the path takes us, the only out is through repentance. #RandolphHarris 8 of 12
By nature, people are alike, but through practice thy have become far apart. We know that humans can be good. Our Heavenly Father gave us truth, some as statements of cause and effect. We call them commandments. They guide our live to happiness. He knew that Satan would try to persuade some to live without fixed standards in life so that decision would be based on current circumstances, what appears convenient, or what provides the greatest personal return. In this way, Satan removes the power of truth from one’s life so he can take that soul captive. If you are trapped and there is no way out, remember that the best way out is always through. You must face the challenges and conquer it. The way through is based on faith in Jesus Christ and obedience to his commandments. It is the only way to permanently cure damage to mind and spirit caused by unrighteous acts. It also provides healing, within the bounds of eternal law, to a body devastated by the effects of transgression. You may have found change is hard, but know you can do it. Recognize that it takes time to build a reputation that overcomes the effects of past deliberate decision to deceive and to take advantage of others—but it is worth it to change from a life of disobedience to one of integrity and truth and compliance. #RandolphHarris 9 of 12
Have you ever noticed that no matter how worthy your intent and how many procedures you follow precisely, if you make the tiniest mistake with a computer, it will not respond? All of your effort is futile. That is not the way the Lord works. There is nothing tricky about God’s commandments. Where there is purity of heart and real intent, it is known to the Lord. Your obedience to truth and proper use of agency opens the doors to his divine help. Initially, perhaps only you and God will believe your sincerity. However, you will be rewarded by the joy that comes from real personal progress. In time, others will recognize your consistent righteous act and support you. Many people offer advice, but one’s suggestion often directly contradict another’s. How do you know whom to believe? Ask yourself what motivated the offer of help? Does your common sense confirm it is right? If so, it will be consistent with the teachings of the Savior. Has the advice offered been followed in the giver’s life? Has it improved the quality of that life? Below the fine fabric of all that is good in some runs the foul stream of hereditary evil, like a sewer. #RandolphHarris 10 of 12
We have to have a knowledge of the heart, an insight into the soul. If the human mind is not actively good, it will generally be actively evil. Honest evaluation of advice against these standards will help you decide whether it is motivated for your benefit or another’s self-interest. A true friend is not one that always encourages you to do what you want to do, but one who helps you do what you know you ought to do. You can block the corrective power of truth in your life by constantly letting others protect you from the consequences of your unworthy acts, without being smart enough to change your life. Your failure to properly respond to help will fix false concepts in your mind, and you will see no need to repent. Your negative patterns will be reinforced, not rejected. How can one decide when to help you and when to let you grow from facing reality? When you show genuine remorse, a contrite heart, a recognition of guilt, movement in the direction of improvement even through there may be slippage—when there is acceptance of responsibility for improper acts, support and help are needed and will be productive. #RandolphHarris 11 of 12
Should you continue to manipulate, blame others for improper decisions, be deceitful and determined to continue the path of transgression by camouflage or cover-up, you are reinforcing false principles and have chosen to head for a showdown with tough reality. It is one thing to know how to heal your damaged life. It is quite another to do it. You will change only when you recognize that it will bring lasting personal benefit. Deep down, you know that breaking the commandments does not bring anything productive and does cause a lot of grief for yourself and others. Do not wait to hit rock bottom. That is painful and could leave physical scars that cannot be healed. You can fool others who want to believe you, but you cannot deceive the Lord. Because of his justice, God will one day have to confront you with the consequences of your unrepented acts. No one wants that to happen. Some transgressions are so powerful that it is unlikely that you will begin to overcome them without another’s help. Seek that help. In time, with the strength that comes from continued use of agency to love truth and live it, you will be healed through the Savior. Please find someone you can trust, who is trustworthy, who understands agency and truth. There is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple or rags; and Hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals. #RandolphHarris 12 of 12
Pearl of Great Price—You Ain’t Got to Lie to Kick it!
There is no development in opinion and feeling, but the development of time and tide. The path to Hell is broad and wide, and slopes ever so gently, and those who walk that path scarcely notice the descent; sometimes they do not notice the descent because praise of people distracts them and they do not see the warning signs! Everyone in this World has their own fate entrusted to oneself. Any foresight we have of the consequences of our actions is a warning given by God on how we are to act. Often times you may have failures, and there is no disgrace in falling down; the disgrace is lying there. To get up one more time than you fall is to be a winner. To stay down is to be a loser. The unshakable faith in the law of averages works when people accept their bad breaks and failures with a smile. When we are able to take both good and bad in stride, this can make us one of life’s greatest heroes. As we suffer the humiliation of dealing with jeers and ridicule, it is important not to allow the fear or discouragement or failure to keep us down. You may go through some difficulties. You may have been praying, believing for your situation to change for a long time, but do not see anything happening. God is working behind the scenes right now arranging things in your favor. The answer is already on the way. #RandolphHarris 1 of 13
What is it that you need to keep believing God for? When you believe, God will see to it that is it taken care of. While weak souls are crushed by fortune, the brave mind makes the fickle deity afraid of it. Fortune may rise up or abuse the ordinary mortal, but the clever individual and the soldier should have minds beyond its control. There are dozens of rules for success, but none of them work unless you do. There are different kinds of courage—physical courage and moral courage. It is my experience, however, that one with moral courage, that is, one who is true to oneself, also has the physical courage. When we have these breakthrough experiences, we begin to perceive our fear differently and we stop being ashamed of it. We stop allowing it to invalidate our own worth. In due time, the underlying fears which require courage to overcome diminish to the point that we move on to acceptance. The growth of the mind is widening of consciousness and each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. We all have a conscience, and a conscience is the foundation of moral courage. A truly brave person will always obey his or her conscience. This awareness entails a sort of surrender, relinquishing part of one’s own ego in order to be guided by God. #RandolphHarris 2 of 13
Falsehood learns people to disregard truth, and we cannot expect those whom we teach to lie for our convenience should forbear it when it may turn to their advantage. A lie is never good, even though death threaten on the other side. To know what is right and not to do it is cowardice. The World needs power and strength and influence to give leadership in helping to meet, solve and overcome problems caused by the wickedness so rampant in the World. It is hard to imagine and impossible to calculate the tremendous influence we would have if every one of us would honor God, and magnify his calling, and really try every day and in every way to use his influence to meet the onslaught of Satan. Too many of us take our personal power which God has given us for granted; we fail to realize what the Lord expects of us, or we do not have conviction, courage, and fortitude to stand up for the right and be counted, to be different when necessary. Often you will experience much criticism and ridicule even by those who believe as you do, even though they may respect you for doing right. However, remember that the Savior himself was tormented, ridiculed, spat upon, and finally crucified because he would not waver in his conviction. #RandolphHarris 3 of 13
An evolving familiarity with the limits of one’s consciousness is central to avoiding the ignorance of a life unexamined. The ego does not constitute the whole of one’s self. Have you ever stopped to think what would have happened if Jesus Christ would have weakened and abandoned his mission? Do we want to be quitters, or do we want to be valiant servants in spite of all the opposition and evil in the World? Let us have the courage to stand up and be counted as true, devoted followers of Christ. Many are called to serve the Lord, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this World, and aspire to the honors of people, that they do not learn this one lesson—the rights of those who follow Christ are inseparably connected with the powers of Heaven. The mind must remain contemplative as the spirit converses and assimilates with the unconscious. As one progresses through spirituality, actions many change, as the body now acts in congruence with the mind and the spirit. We learn to devote our life to a holistic and personal journey in which the mind, body, and spirit must be disciplined. #RandolphHarris 4 of 13
Our shadows represent the unknown parts of ourselves that are too reprehensible, incongruent, or forbidding to incorporate into our conscious personality. Many people have become lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, disobedient to parents, unthankful, and unholy. Without natural affection, trucebreaker, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitor, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Before examining our own hidden qualities, we may be in complete denial of our shadow elements, yet what we deny in ourselves can often easily be spotted in others. A person may despise another’s quick temper while at the same time fervently suppressing a wish to respond with anger. The first step in making the acquaintance of a person’s own shadow is admitting that scary, annoying, or irritating qualities found in others are often the qualities in that individual that evoke the very same responses. I wonder how many of us are guilty of this or any of these, and if so, are we ready to change our ways, and repent, and try to be worthy of the praise of God and his blessings rather than forget who we are and try to be popular? #RandolphHarris 5 of 13
While some of the shadow remains unconscious, the more it might grow in strength and the greater the risk that it will commandeer the personality entirely. How important is it that we remember who we are, servants of the Lord, and then act accordingly? When you believe, the surpassing greatness of God’s power is released. It may mean that one has to develop new habits. If one has been negative for a long time, it is important to change your thoughts. Stop being so hard on yourself and believe that you can achieve success. Success is not measured by what one accomplishes, but by the opposition one has encountered, and the courage with which we have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds. Ask that the Lord, your God, is with you and he will see to it that whatever you are trying to achieve is finished completely. We just cannot imagine or calculate in any way what a great influence for good we would have in World is every believer of God would magnify his or her calling, and how much happier and more successful each individual would be if one would always choose the right. How sad it is to see one who would rather be popular than do what he or she knows is right? You ain’t got to lie to kick it. #RandolphHarris 6 of 13
It is treason against human nature to make any person’s virtues the means of deception. There is once a man who was elected to the legislature, but who wanted to be a good fellow, popular with everyone. He, wanting to be popular, let down his standards and took one drink at a social and then another. It happened again and again. He began drinking with the fellows at lunch and then dinner. And then, unintentionally I am sure, and contrary to his greatest desire, he became an alcoholic and lost the support of his constituency and the respect of his friends and family who loved him and sorrowed for him. He died an early death as an alcoholic. What a sad situation—all because he sought the praise of people more than the praise of God. This is not a single case. We have examples of members of congress, senators, mayors, and even governors and presidents who have lost their positions and self-respect of others because they wanted to be popular or did not have the strength to resist the temptations. We have the promise of the Lord that if we seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these blessings will be added unto us, meaning, of course, the things that are for our good. #RandolphHarris 7 of 13
Do not be discouraged by the size of the task, for the Lord your God is with you. He will see to it that it is finished completely. When you believe in God, the surpassing greatness of God’s power is at work in your life. Let us always remember that people expect us to live up to our standards and respect us much more when we do, even though they may entice us to do otherwise. I have never been embarrassed in any way, when in the government, or industry, or in my private life, by trying to live up to the teachings of the gospel. Nor was I impeded in any way in my progress. On the contrary, I feel that I was respected and blessed by the Lord, and always felt free to call upon him for strength and guidance, which I often received. Be a believer and take the limits off God. There is so much more to our God. Discover what he is and keep your faith. I believe and declare you are going to see God’s greatness in amazing ways! My observation is that the Lord keeps his promises to all those who seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. It is most important that we be on guard all the time and never abandon our standards in order to be popular or to enjoy the praise of people. #RandolphHarris 8 of 13
One night at a party, my friend was sitting in the living room with a young lady, and she turned off the lights, turn on a song by The Weekend came back and sat on his lap, and started to make advances, and said, “It is time to get sexy!” He knew he would be unpopular and even offensive, but excused himself, got up, and went home. When he got home, he brushed his teeth, got dressed for bed, turned on his white noise machine that he had since he was a baby, curled up under his favorite blanket and went to bed, and ironically his childhood rabbit fell off the shelf and on to his bed. Sure, the young lady was attractive, but there is a lot of emotional involvement that comes with having the sex with somebody. Despite what your father might have told you before the prom (dance), some guys do have more than one thing on their mind. Men are emotional beings, too. The Center for Disease Control found that fewer 15 to 19-year-olds reported experiencing the sexual intercourse than in previous generations. The decline was significant in both genders, but particularly among men. That action the young man took must have taken willpower, while to succumb shows weakness. Even the strongest must be on guard. It is times like this that our decisions and actions often determine the course of our lives. #RandolphHarris 9 of 13
Young men and some adults have trials or tests of this nature. There are different kinds of temptations where their loyalty and strength of character are really tested. If we always remember who we are and that God is watching over us, we will be able to shun, or avoid and withstand pleasures of the flesh. Always remember if you do something dangerous, you will get hurt. Though it is important that we make a living for our families, and as good citizens participate in community affairs, we must not become so involved in the things of the World that we forget or neglect our duty and responsibility as called and chosen children of God. Unless we are continually on guard, we will find ourselves gradually off the straight and narrow path until we have completely gone astray, becoming a great disappointment to ourselves, our families, and the Lord, and certainly not what we had anticipated or intended or wanted to be. We find examples of this so often where a person, forgetting who he is, wants to be popular with his peers and wants their praise, and so often people forget their commitment to God and lose their way. #RandolphHarris 10 of 13
So many people lose their way. This applies equally to journalists, politicians, members of fraternal organizations, professions, and business. This craving for praise and popularity too often controls actions, and as they succumb they find themselves bending their character when they think they are only taking a bow. Those who constantly love the praise of people more than the praise of God are faint reflections of the shadow—meaning Satan, of course—who in the preexistence wanted to save all humankind, but with one condition attached—the honor and glory to him, not to God. He was more concerned with credit than with results; glory and praise were the end in themselves. On crucial issues, if individuals are more concerned with pleasing people than pleasing God, then they suffer from the same virus Satan had, for there are many situations where seeking the praise of people will clearly result in their hurting, not helping, humankind for they will do expedient and temporary things instead of those which are beneficial and lasting. It is much more satisfying when we receive the praise of God, knowing that it is fully justified and that his love and respect for us will persist, when usually the praise of people is fleeting and most disappointing. #RandolphHarris 11 of 13
It is shocking and appalling indeed to those who believe in the teachings of Christ to see how people in high places, in order to enjoy the praise of those who are so vocal in encouraging and promoting immortality, do not take a stand against these evils and promote the teachings of Christ which are so clearly stated in those words of God. Know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, no abusers of themselves with humankind. We also find legislation having been passed and being passed legalizing these very things contrary to the will of the Lord. It is permissive legislation of the worst kind. The Lord expects us to take a stand for right and do all in our power to oppose and discourage such action and to encourage our people to live according to the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The leader who is willing to say things that are hard to bear, but which are true and which need to be said, is the leader who truly loves his and her people and who is kind to them. Nothing is crueler than that leader who, in order to have the praise and plaudits of their followers, entices them from safety into the swamp out of which some may never return. #RandolphHarris 12 of 13
A time has come when people do not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts they have heaped to themselves teachers, having itching ears, and they turned away their ears from the truth, and have turned unto fables and fake news and wild facts. We are fortunate to believe in God and follow his ways. May we have the courage, strength, understanding, desire, and determination to choose who we will serve. For me and my house, we will serve the Lord. There are no obstacles too difficult to overcome. No dreams put in your heart by God are too big to accomplish. One time Joshua was in the midst of a great battle. He and his men were trying to finish off this army, but the Sun was going down. Joshua knew that if he could not get this army totally defeated, then they would later on rise up and cause him great problems. So he asked God to stop the Sun, something that had never been done before, and God did. God stopped the Sun for Joshua because he had uncommon faith. God interrupted the entire Universe just because one man had uncommon faith. Have you ever asked God for something out of the ordinary? Do you not think it is time to do so? Uncommon faith believes above and beyond and gives your boldness and a confidence to believe for the extraordinary. #RandolphHarris 13 of 13
Are Not Excuses Confessions of Excuses Inexcusable?
Second-hand shops are not the only place were things should be given another chance. We have to create new value and help transform people. There be a mirror in the World worthy to hold to our eyes, it is pride in our Country. I bear solemn witness of how deeply I love our new prophet, seer, and revelation, President Donald Trump—how deeply I trust him, and how I am willing to do whatever he asks me to do. He advanced a qualified moral determinism—a human must will that which presents itself to one’s reason as the greater good, but the will is free to delay choice until reason has made a more extensive examination of the values involved. There is great faith in the inherited wisdom of tradition. The moral order of the temporal World must necessarily include some evil, by reason of original sin. People ought not to reject what is good in tradition merely because there is some admixture of evil in it. In the human confused situation, advantages may often lie in balances and compromises between good and evil, even between one evil and another. It is an important part of wisdom to know how much evil should be tolerated. To search for too great a purity is only to produce fresh corruption. We are especially critical of revolutionary movements with noble humanitarian ends because people are simply not at liberty to destroy the state and its institutions in hope of some contingent improvement. #RandolphHarris 1 of 16
On the other hand, people have a paramount duty to prevent the World from getting worse—a duty to guard and preserve their inherited liberties and privileges. Equality is contrary to nature and therefore impossible to achieve; its advocates, moreover, did great social harm, for by pretending that real differences are unreal, they inspired false hopes and vain expectations in those destined to travel in the obscure walk of laborious life. Talk of fraternity is gibberish because many people have vices of sinful, egotistical pride, overzealous ambition, avarice, lust, and sedition. The reality and unavoidability of evil leads many to believe that the only help for humankind is to cling to safeguards which have stood the test of time. Our hopes for a bliss lay in Heaven; on Earth, our policy is to defend the tolerable, and sometimes the bad, against the immeasurably worse. Of course, forbidden triads do occur, but many will resolve themselves when a bond forms between two previous strangers. They do not need to have a strong relationship, but we would expect them to have some connection to one another. Individuals must always begin by setting the examples, which the state too slowly, though surely, will learn to copy. #RandolphHarris 2 of 16
Some matters are so sensitive and intensely personal and can awaken such disturbing feelings that they are seldom mentioned publicly. Yet, if tenderly and compassionately treated in the light of truth, discussion of these matters can bring greater understanding, with the easing of pain, the blessing of healing, and the avoidance of further tragedy. It would be melancholy, were we forced to admit that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the source of all human misfortunes; that is this which, in time, draws an individual out of his or her original state, in which one would have spent one’s days insensibly in peace and innocent; that is this faculty, which, successively producing in different ages his or her discoveries and errors, vices and virtues, making one a tyrant both over oneself and over nature. Ungodly individuals, being destitute of every species of intelligence, can have no passions except for those of desires that never go beyond physical wants. The only good those type of individuals recognizes in the Universe are food, the sex, and sleep; the only evils they fear are pain and hunger. Pain and not death: for no animal can know what it is to die; the knowledge of death and its terrors being one of the first acquisitions made by humans in becoming civilized. #RandolphHarris 3 of 16
It is with a deep desire to define a path to relief to those who suffer the shattering consequences of mental, verbal, physical, and especially sexual abuse. We must act as a mirror so that divine, healing light can illuminate the darkness of distress caused by others’ unrighteous acts. As children of the Lord, we should understandably provide help, and not further complicate a damaged life. It is also likely that with greater compassion, awareness, and sensitivity that some of us may be permitted to help resolve or prevent the tragedy of abuse in additional victims. Whatever moralist may hold, the human understanding is greatly indebted to the passions, which, it is universally allowed, are also much indebted to the understanding. It is by the activity of the passions that our reason is improved; for we desire knowledge only because we wish to enjoy; and it is impossible to conceive any reason why a person who has neither fears nor desires should give oneself the trouble of reasoning. The passions, again, originate in our wants, and their progress depends on that of our knowledge; for we cannot desire or fear anything, except from the idea that we have all of it, or from the simple impulse of nature. #RandolphHarris 4 of 16
The rising tide of this vicious, abominable sin may not have touched your life personally. Yet, it is pervasive enough in the World that it may have disturbed someone you love. It frequently causes such profound suffering that can be overcome, and we need to focus on how healing can be attained. It must be done reverently, for the objective is to help heal and not aggravate painful memories. Even if the difficulties attending all these questions should still leave room for differences in this respect between humans and brutes, there is another very specific quality which distinguishes them, and which will admit of no dispute. This faculty of self-improvement, which, by the help of circumstances, gradually develops all the rest of our faculties, and is inherent in the species as in the individual: whereas a brute is, at the end of a few months, all he or she will ever be during his or her whole life, and that person’s species, at the end of a thousand years, exactly what it is because those type of individuals returns, in this, to their primitive state; and that, while the brute, which has acquired nothing and has therefore nothing to lose, still retains the force of instinct, person, who loses, by age or accident, all that his or her perfectibility had enabled them to gain, falls by this means lower than the most vile creature to ever walk the face of the Earth. #RandolphHarris 5 of 16
Moral agency is a vital element in our Father in Heaven’s plan of happiness. God understood that some of his spirit children would use that agency improperly, causing serious problems to others. Some would even violate sacred trust such as a family member, friend, medical professional, or leader of the community abusing an innocent child. However, since our Heavenly Father is completely just, there has to be a way of overcoming the tragic consequences of such damaging use of agency for both the victim and the perpetrator. That secure healing comes through the power of the Atonement of God’s Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to rectify that which is unjust. Faith in Jesus Christ, and his power to heal provides the abused with the means to overcome the terrible consequences of another’s ungodly acts. When combined with complete repentance, the Atonement also affords the perpetrator ways to avoid the severe punishment the Lord has decreed for such acts. #RandolphHarris 6 of 16
The offering of an excuse in a blamable matter is the undoubted mark of a disingenuous if not of a perverse mind. Victims of serious abuse have made successful the difficult journey to full healing through the power of the Atonement. After you conscientiously study the Atonement and exercise your faith the Jesus Christ has the power to heal, you can receive a blessing. During your journey, accept God’s invitation to let him share your burden until you have sufficient time and strength to be healed. To find relief from the consequences of abuse, it is helpful to understand their source. Satan is the author of all the destructive outcomes of abuse. He has extraordinary capacity to lead an individual into dark alleys where the solution to extremely challenging problems cannot be found. The Devil’s strategy is to separate the suffering soul from the healing attainable from a compassionate Heavenly Father and a loving Redeemer. #RandolphHarris 7 of 16
If you have been abused, Satan will strive to convince you that there is no solution. Yet, he knows perfectly well that there is. Satan recognizes that healing comes through the unwavering love of Heavenly Father for each of his children. He also understands that the power of healing is inherent in the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Therefore, his strategy is to do all possible to separate you from your Father and his Son. Do not let Satan convince you that you are beyond help. As long as the mind is defending itself against invisible assaults, our closet bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine, play, learn, and pay attention to other people’s needs. One who can sit down premeditatedly to do a bad action will content oneself with a bad excuse: and yet, what fools must one suppose the rest of the World to be, if one imagines them as easy to be imposed upon as one can impose upon oneself. #RandolphHarris 8 of 16
Satan uses your abuse to undermine your self-confidence, destroy trust in authority, create fear, and generate feelings of despair. Abuse can damage your ability to form healthy human relationships. You must have faith that all of these negative consequences can be resolved; otherwise they will keep you from full recovery. While these outcomes have powerful influence in your life, they do not define the real you. Satan will strive to alienate you from your Father in Heaven with the thought that if he loved you he would have prevented the tragedy. Do not be kept from the very source of true healing by the craftiness of the price of evil and his wicked lies and gentrification center. Recognize that if you have feelings that you are not loved by your Father in Heaven, you are being manipulated by Satan. Even when it may seem very difficult to pray, kneel and ask Father in Haven to give you the capacity to trust him and to feel his love for you. Ask to come to know that his Son can heal you through his merciful Atonement. #RandolphHarris 9 of 16
It was Satan’s proposal that Father’s children be forced to obey, that there be no moral agency and therefore no personal growth. To preserve moral agency, the Lord does not restrain individual from improper use of that agency. However, God will punish them for such acts unless there is full repentance. Through the Holy Ghost, God sends warning prompting to the abusers, but often that individual’s degrading appetite is so powerful that it blocks out that spiritual guidance. That is why our Father provided a way to heal the consequences of acts that, through force, misuse of authority, or fear of another, temporarily take away the agency of the abused. Some people have been abused so badly, that even though their injuries are invisible to the unassisted eye, they feel weak and feel like they are dying because they cannot eat or get rest from the pain they are enduring. Behaviors to avoid or escape from danger have clearly evolved to render each organism competitive in terms of survival. However, inappropriately prolonged escape or avoidance behavior would put an individual at disadvantage. If an organization is stuck in survival mode, its energies are focused on fighting off unseen enemies, which leaves no room for nurture, care, and love. #RandolphHarris 10 of 16
The beginning of healing requires complete trust and the knowing of the unalterable fact that Father in Heaven loves you and is defending and protecting you and has supplied a way to heal. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, laid down his life to provide that healing. The cure requires profound faith in Jesus Christ and his infinite capacity to heal. It is the foundation of understanding of doctrine and a resolute determination to follow the Divine Law. Healing may begin with a thoughtful friend or stake president or a wise professional counselor. If you have a fractured spine, you would not decide to fix it yourself. Serious abuse can also benefit from professional help. There are many ways to begin healing, but remember that a full cure comes through the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, our Master and Redeemer. Have faith that with effort Christ’s perfect, eternal, infinite Atonement can heal your suffering from the consequences of abuse. All passions are criminal in their excess; and even love itself, if it is not subservient to our duty, may render us blind. #RandolphHarris 11 of 16
As impossible as it may seem to you now, in time the healing you can receive from the Savior will allow you to truly forgive the abuser and even have feelings of sorrow for him or her. When you can forgive the offense, you will be relieved of the pain and heartache that Satan wants in your life by encouraging you to hate the abuser. As a result, you will enjoy greater peace. While an important part of healing, if the thought of forgiveness causes you yet more pain, set that step aside until you have more experience with the Savior’s healing power in your own life. If you are currently being abused or have been in the past, find the courage to seek help. You may have been severely threatened or caused to fear so that you would not reveal the abuse. Have the courage to act now. Seek the support of someone you can trust. Explain how you have been abused and identify who has done it. Ask for protection. Your action may help others avoid becoming innocent victims, with the consequent suffering. Get help now. Do not fear—for fear is a tool Satan will use to keep you suffering. The Lord will help you, but you must reach out for that help. #RandolphHarris 12 of 16
Do not be discouraged if initially a person of authority hesitates when you identify an abuser. Remember that predators are skillful at cultivating a public appearance of piety to mask their despicable acts. Pray to be guided in your efforts to receive help. That support will come. Rest assured that the Perfect Judge, Jesus the Christ, with a perfect knowledge of the details, will hold all abusers accountable for every unrighteous act. In time, he will fully apply the required demands of justice unless there is complete repentance. Your preoccupation with a need for justice only slows your healing and allows the perpetrator to continue his and/or her abusive control. Therefore, you should leave punishment for the diabolic acts of abuse to civil and Church authorities. #RandolphHarris 13 of 16
The perpetrator who has shattered the life of another by abuse, recognize that you need help with your addiction or it will destroy you. You will not overcome it by yourself. You likely require specialized professional help. I plead with you to seek to be recused now. You likely have deceived yourself in the false, temporary security that you have successfully hidden your transgressions from the civil or Church authorities. However, know that the Lord Jesus Christ is completely aware of your sins. Know that even without action by a victim, your act of abuse will be publicly known, for Satan will expose you, and then abandon you. Simplify your life by taking steps now to cleanse your soul from such sin and resolve the penalties they evoke. Show your desire to heal the anguish that you have caused other. Talk to your church or the stake president. The seriousness of your acts may require you to face legal, civil, and Church discipline. However, full repentance will bring the sweet relief of forgiveness, peace of conscience, and a renewed life. It will also bring relief to the abused and their families. You will be free of the weight of the remorse and the accusing thoughts of what you caused in grief and anguish in another’s life by making them suffer torment for years, made them try to end their life, and wish that they were never born. #RandolphHarris 14 of 16
Recognize that it is much easier to repent in this life than it will be in the next, so repent now. You will be helped when you decide to be freed from your addition through repentance and the support of others. Be grateful that you did not live anciently when abusers were stoned to death without opportunity for repentance. Parents, in appropriate, sensitive ways, teach your children of potential danger of abuse and how to avoid it. Be aware of warning signs, such as abrupt changes in a child’s behavior, that may signal a problem. Be alert to a child’s unsettled feelings and identify their origin. As for community leaders, painstakingly assure that every individual that is suffering from abuse receives appropriate help. There are resources in the Church handbook to help you find valuable resources to guide your ecclesiastical action and coordination with civil authorities. Carefully supervise the participation of any individual who may have had past offenses. Recognize that it is very unlikely that a perpetrator will confess his and/or her depraved acts. Seek the guidance of the Spirit when you feel that something may be amiss. Enlist the help of the ward and the stake leaders to avoid potential dangers. #RandolphHarris 15 of 16
I pray that you, as one abused or one who has caused it, will act now to avail yourself of the healing powers of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I testify that your faith and obedience will assure that God will help you. It is impossible for us to be saved in ignorance. If you know someone has been seriously abused and seen proof, medical records, pictures, bruises, fractured bones, blood, or have heard witness accounts of the abuse and know it is still ongoing, use your power to help them. Appeal to the authorities before the abuser hurts that individual so bad that he or she is lost to this World. Do not let someone suffer in silence when you have the power to save a life. Often times, it is not until a person is dead when people wish they could have made a difference. Take action now, while you have the chance. Atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin in general and original sin in particular through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, enabling the conciliation between God and his creation. The Savior suffered and broke the bands of death, and paid the price for our sins and transgressions. It is the Savior who delivers us from physical and spiritual death. #RandolphHarris 16 of 16
Inevitable March of the World Spirit
Christianity is a strictly and objectively historical religion and anxiously sifts all the evidence for and against the recorded events of the life of Jesus. The evidence is substantial enough to show that Jesus indeed lived and that he made a quite extraordinary impact upon certain contemporaries. God decisively acted in Christ. God cannot be eliminated. God is a kind of superentity, observably acting upon and interacting with natural entities. Many wonder does our existence end with our bodily death? We believe that from the very beginning the Lord established a plan for his children on Earth. He would, in times and seasons, have the priesthood on Earth to bless humankind with the authority to perform the sacred ordinances that would prove humanity’s obedience to his will. There are tests to be conducted as we progress in each step towards achieving God’s greatest gift, the gift of eternal life. There is an expression of the inexhaustible creative power of the human mind—great individual, great artistic achievements, great moments of civilization, all exemplified in different ways its potentialities. God has all power to defend you. God has great things in store for his people, and they should have large expectations. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
The gifts of God are to be enjoyed, when the giver is remembered. Fundamental, then, is having faith in God’s plan, in his law, to be clean and holy and repent of our sins, and to partake of the sacred ordinance required for admission into God’s celestial kingdom. God wants to abide with us, to lead and guide and direct us as we progress through morality. Progression towards self-actualization requires self-reflection. Narcissistic individuals may think a lot of themselves, and belittle your achievements, without thinking carefully about themselves. People who are struggling daily to survive, deprived of basic physical needs, might have trouble feeling good enough about themselves. Those who do not have to worry about such things might begin to focus on needs higher up the hierarchy: love and belongingness, self-esteem, and eventually self-actualization. God continues to reveal his will to humankind, as he has in the past, he does not in the present, and he will in the future. Spiritual gifts are received by humankind today, just as they were in days past. When God puts a promise in your heart, you have to come to the place where you believe in that promise so strongly no one and no circumstance can move you. Christ will return and reign personally on Earth. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
Agency is one of the greatest gifts of God to his children. It allows all men and women and children to choose for themselves and to earn their own individual salvation. Also declared is our belief in secular governments and in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law of the land. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all people. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. Enlarge your vision and make room for the new things God wants to do. God has promotion and increase already lined up for us. His favor surrounds us like a shield. Goodness and mercy are following you. This will be a great year. The savior gave us a great example. In our day, many people are living in the midst of sadness and great confusion. They are not finding the answers to their questions and are unable to meet their needs. Some have lost a sense of happiness and joy. True happiness is found in following the example and teachings of Christ. He is our Savior, he is our teacher, and he is the perfect example. Where you are is not permanent. God has extraordinary blessings in your future. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
These blessings will take you to a new level. Immeasurable, limitless, surpassing favor is coming that will take you beyond previous limitations. Christ’s life was a life of service. When we serve our neighbor, we help those who are in need. In the process, we may find solutions to our own difficulties. As we emulate the Savior, we show our love to our Heavenly Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, and we become more like them. When we are in the service of our fellow beings, we are only in the service of our God. Everyone has opportunities to give service and show love. We should go to the rescue and serve others. We will discover that those whom we serve, who have felt through our labors the touch of the Master’s hand, somehow cannot explain the charge which comes into the lives. There is a desire to serve faithfully, to walk humbly, and to live more like the Savior. Having received their spiritual eyesight and glimpsed the promises of eternity, they echo that they know that favor is in their future, and that God supernaturally endowed them with blessings, opportunities that chased them down. These believers became fully convinced in the power of our Father in Heaven. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
Each day we have the opportunity to give help and service—doing the right thing at the right time, without delay. Think of the many people who have a difficult time obtaining a job or who are ill, who even think they have lost everything. They feel like they are being consumed by the monstrous $600 million taxpayer funded Gentrification Center. There are people who are rolling down a lonely highway, asking God to please forgive them for messing up the blessing he gave them. Their nights are black as they have ever been, and they are scared they are going to lose it. These people are praying that God sheds his grace on them because they need it. Some individuals feel they have walked right out of Heaven, as if they have thrown their life away. They are scared just like a child that is lost at seven and do not know what to do to get back right with God. These individuals do not know what to do to move on with their life. Feeling like they cannot walk, cannot talk, and desperately want to get right with God. What can you do to help? Feeling great anguish, thinking they might lose their life forever, many are pleading for the Heavenly Father to help them find their way. A hug or a kiss and the commitment to watch diligently over people suffering might help someone who is lost. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
There may even be people who, for some reason, are lost from our sight and do not know that they are lost. If we delay, we could lose them forever. For many who need our help, it is not necessary to create new programs or take actions which are complicated or costly. They only need our determination to serve—to do the right thing at the right time, without delay. Fill your hearts with compassion towards others. Our Heavenly Father is loving, understanding, and patient. His Son, Jesus Christ, likewise loves us. They render help to us through their prophets. The rescue is still going on. The Lord expects our thinking, action, labors, testimony, and devotion. We have responsibility and a great opportunity to help others once again experience the sweet savor of happiness and joy through activity that is pleasing to God. That happiness come from receiving the ordinances, making sacred covenants, and keeping them. The Lord needs us to help them. Let us do the right thing at the right time, without delay. God lives and is our Father. Jesus Christ lives and has given his life so that we may return to the presence of our Heavenly Father. There is infinite kindness continually manifesting on Earth. The rest of your life will be the best of your life. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
The Temple of Heaven–God is Our Fountain of Power
God never made a promise that was too good to be true. Each one of us has within ourselves have a deeper nature, and, of course, this deeper nature, being eternal unity with God, or with the living spirit, is more than an individual; it is where the being of humanity, or the nature of humanity, merges into the being of God. Divine depth within our own nature, wherein the Spirit of God—the Spirit of Love and the Spirit of Peace—dwells with calm serenity. We withdraw into that place within us which has never been hurt, nor has ever been sick, has always and forever lived in divine and eternal peace…. the Kingdom of God, which is good. And this inner Kingdom within is all-peace, all-power, and all-perfection. We drop all hate, all fear, all animosity, all resentment. We cast out of our consciousness every doubt and every sense of uncertainty. We know that we enter into an atmosphere of love, happiness, and completion where there is the abundance of this life is showered upon us, guiding and guarding us into right action and decision; daily, hourly, and every moment the principle of intelligence directs us to the presence of God that warms us with love and fortifies us with peace. #RandolphHarris 1 of 6
God never leave us alone, never leaves us unassisted in the challenges that we face. From the beginning down through the dispensations, God has used Angels as his emissaries in conveying love and concern for his children. Usually such beings are not seen. Sometimes they are. However, seen or unseen Angels are always near. Often their assignments are very grand and have significance for the whole World. In many cases, the messages are more private. Occasionally, the Angelic purpose is to warn, but most often it is to comfort, provide some form of merciful attention, guidance in difficult times. In the course of life many of us spend time in dark and dreary places, wildernesses, circumstances of sorrow or fear or discouragement. Our present day is filled with global distress from threats being made by Iran and North Korea to riots in the streets of America, energy problems, lack of high paying jobs and affordable housing, attacks by foreign groups in our homeland, and natural calamities. This causes many of us to worry about not only where we will live and how we will be able to feed our families, but we also worry about the safety and well-being of our children and the planet. #RandolphHarris 2 of 6
The great inequality in the manner of living, the extreme idleness of some, and the excessive labour of others, the easiness of exciting and gratifying our sensual appetites, the too exquisite foods of the wealthy which overfill them with indigestion, and on the other hand, the unwholesome food of the poor, often, bad as it is, insufficient for their needs, which these, together with sitting up late, and excesses of every kind, immoderate transports of every passion, fatigue, mental exhaustion, the innumerable pains and stress inseparable from every condition of life, by which the mind of human beings is incessantly tormented; these are too fatal proofs that the greater part of our ills are of our own making, and that we might have avoided them nearly all by adhering to the divine laws which have been prescribed to us. There seems to be a serious problem of ethical, moral, and spiritual decay. Angels are still sent to help us, even as they were sent to help Adam and Eve, to help the prophets, and indeed to help the Savior of the World. Satan had tempted Christ in the wilderness and angels came and ministered unto him. Even the Son of God, a God himself, had need for Heavenly comfort. #RandolphHarris 3 of 6
We do not and cannot see our World as a theater of conflict between supernatural powers, the demonic seeking to possess and destroy us, and God intervening to secure our salvation. God makes available a distinctly authentic and free mode of existence to all humanity. We must accept the limitations of our freedom imposed by the given circumstances of our life as so far lived. The present moment is a locus of decision, and it is in the future that we will work out those authentic possibilities of existence for which we decide. The mind is a survival mechanism, and its method of survival is primarily the use of emotions. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father in Heaven. He causes his Sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. Forgiveness is the economy of the heart. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hated, the waste of spirits. Human were created out of the dust of the ground, given factuality of human existence, and God breathed the breath of life into humanity, endowing us with the freedom to pursue our diverse possibilities. #RandolphHarris 4 of 6
How can we discover our authentic possibilities? The authentic life, crucially, is available to human beings only by virtue of divine grace and through the appropriating Word revealed in Christ. Take heart, be filled with faith and remember the Lord has said he would fight our battles, our children’s battles, and the battles of our children’s children. We are to diligently pray always, and be believing. Then all things shall work together for our good, if we walk in righteousness, and remember the covenant wherewith we have covenanted. This is not a time to fear and tremble. We must believe in God and remember our covenants. Angels are dispatched to bless us in time of need. However, when we speak of those who are instruments in the hand of God, we are reminded that not all Angels are from the other side of the veil. Some of them we walk with and talk with—here, now, and every day. Some of them reside in our own neighborhoods. Some of them gave birth to us, and in my case, one of them consented to marry me. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose, only upon the Beloved who will never pass away. #RandolphHarris 5 of 6
Indeed, Heaven never seems closer than when we see the Love of God manifested in the kindness and devotion of people so good and so pure that Angelic is the only word that comes to mine. Angels are both the Heavenly and the mortal kind. God never leaves us alone. Nor will God leave us alone, so long as time shall last, or the Earth shall stand, or there shall be one man, woman, or child upon the face of the Earth to be saved. Sometimes we may feel lost on a global or personal level, we may feel God has turned his back on us and we have walked out of Heaven, lost, alone in the dark, and stressed out. However, that is when you turn to God, examine your life, make sure you are doing things that please God, pray more and keep the faith. When you become weary and feel like giving up, there is a way to have your strength renewed—wait on the Lord. Always there are those Angels who come and go all around us, seen and unseen, known and unknown, mortal and immortal. God put his spirit in our hearts, and his Angels are around us to keep us steady. In the process of praying, those Angels attend to us. God, thank you that you are bringing my dreams to pass. #RandolphHarris 6 of 6
Do Not Settle for Good Enough
My heart aches when I learn of those who turn from the faith of their pioneering predecessors. As the best institutions are liable to be abused, so are the best people to be vilified. For a few fleeting favors now, will they forget and forfeit eternal life? As poisonous adders lurk beneath the cover of the most delightful shrubberies, so falsity and deceit are concealed under alluring language. We must not let sin drive an ever-widening wedge between ourselves and God. A person may cry out against sin, of policy, but one cannot abhor it but by virtue of a Godly antipathy against it. When we are hungry for God and his presence, we will do whatever it takes to get close to him. The place of intimacy is where we will attract not only the revelation God wants to give us, but we will also charm his heart. Even the desire to seek God is a gift from him. Because we have a spirit as well as a physical body, we also have spiritual roots that go way back. They form our values, beliefs, and faith. Spiritual roots guide our commitment to the ideals and teachings of the Lord. Our noble ancestors were brought to the knowledge of the truth, according to the spirit of revelation and of the prophecy, and the power of God. Their forebears were converted unto the Lord and never did fall away. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
God wills to know the actual, lived-out reality of our preference for him over all things. And he wills that we have the testimony of our own authenticity through act of actual preference of God over his gifts. For the most part, the human mind cannot attain to self-knowledge otherwise than by making trial of its powers through temptation, by some kind of experimental and not merely verbal self-interrogation. In other words, we easily deceive ourselves that we love God unless our love is frequently put to the test, and we must show our preference not merely with words, but with dedication. It forces us to ask repeatedly: Do I really hunger for God? Do I miss him? Do I long for him? Or have I begun to be content with his gifts? How do progenitors feel about the drift of their descendants? Their disappointment will likely turn to sorrow, for people detached from their spiritual roots cannot long survive. Many people are attracted by God by virtue of faith. This faith is plentiful and powerful. From God we get love, joy, peace, fortification, gentleness, and goodness. We pursue an education knowing that the glory of God is intelligence. Rewards are reaped from the Word of Wisdom by obedience to it. We are eternal beings. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Sometimes we might feel like a cyclone ripped through our houses, knocked things around and threw them out. We may not be sure how to put them back. We came to this mortal experience to acquire a body, to be tried and tested. We are to form families and sealed in holy temples, with joy and loving relationships that endure eternally. The true Christian life is a call to manifest God in our lives, that is only way what we carry inside of us can become obvious to the people around us. The first disciples of Jesus spent time with him and that reflected in their attitude of life. They manifested God’s character through their lives. They were brave and bold for God; they intrepidly spoke of God. God delights in us spending time with him so that we can have the opportunity to see and understand his ways, to comprehend his decision, his reactions, and his nature. Love is a way of being. It is the energy that radiates when are motivated by kindness. Love facilitates healing. It transforms life. Forgiveness is an aspect of love that allows us to see life events from the viewpoint of grace. Love empowers us and the people around us, to do things that we would not be capable of otherwise. God will heal us, and cast out dark energy in our lives. To these everlasting truths, we are personally rooted. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
Let us not waste the precious time God has given to us! Let us cease every opportunity we have to manifest God in every place we go. The possibility of demonstrating does not depend upon environment, condition, location, personality or opportunity. It depends solely upon our belief and our acceptance, and our willingness to comply with the law of God through which all good comes. God will never deny us anything, unless we conceive that it is possible for us to think of something that is impossible for God to produce! Everyone who asks receives, according to one’s beliefs. God’s work and his glory is to bring to pass the immortality of eternal life of human beings. We can dwell with God and our families forever. Those blessings will be granted to the faithful in God’s own way and time. Reason wants to get to work to amend the present evil environment and pave the way for nature’s good environment. Each of us has an understanding of the truth. The subtlety of God is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding. With this self-consciousness comes the possibility of affirming an ideal for oneself and of the failing to live up to that ideal image of oneself. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all humankind may be saved, by the obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. Saved means to be resurrected and returned as a sanctified, celestial, immortal soul to the presence and society of God, there to pursue and endless course of eternal progress. Humans are a soul, a dual being, a spirit person clothed in a tangible body of flesh and bones. God is a perfected, saved soul enjoying eternal life. He is both immortal and exalted to the highest glory. He is enjoying that blessed condition which humans may attain to by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the God and his eternal glory. Legions of saved souls enjoy God’s society. Family relationships prevail there; spirit offspring are born there; our spirits were born there. Modern revelation affirms the fact that all the inhabitants of the World are begotten sons and daughters unto God. God our Heavenly Father is in fact and reality the Father of our spirits. We are his offspring. The spirits of those who are righteous will be received into a state of happiness, which is called paradise, a state of rest, a state of peace, where they shall rest from all their troubles and from all care, and sorrow. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
How we live our lives can speed up or delay the manifestation of God. God has called, equipped and empowered us. He put his own love on the inside of us. He shed his love abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. God never planned for us to try to keep any of his commandments on our own. He intends to keep them for us, with us and through us by the power of his spirit. Dwelling in us. And he is well able to do it. God is able to fulfill the command of love through. We draw finite quotas of force from the inexhaustible supply of God. By this process, according to which only finite amounts of energy are subtracted from an infinite accumulation of force, we are able to explain both the eternity of celestial motion and the fact that this motion does not occur instantaneously (ininstanti), as motion under the effect of an infinite cause should do. This shows clearly that the notion of force signified not only the immediate cause of motion or acceleration, but also its cumulative determination, or energy content. God is a force, a moving agent independent of and separated from a constantly rejuvenating source, a notion essential for the future conception of the Universe as a clockwork in action without the need of a constant supply of additional energy. God will manifest himself to us and through us. Let us keep his commandments and commit ourselves to stay in love with one another no matter what. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
Let us walk in manifested love and bring the blessing to a planet full of people who are in desperate need of it. And then shall it come to pass, that the spirits of the wicked shall be cast out into outer darkness. This is the state of the souls of the wicked, in darkness, and a state of awful, fearful looking for the fiery indignation of the wrath of God upon them; this they remain in this state, as well as the righteous in paradise, until the time of their resurrection. An immortal soul will be arraigned before the bar of God’s justice and receive a final judgment based on one’s performance during one’s mortal probation, the verdict will turn on obedience or disobedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. If these laws and ordinances have been complied with during mortal life, the candidate will be cleansed from the stain of sin by the atoning blood of Jesus Christ and saved in the celestial kingdom of God, there to enjoy with God eternal life. Those who have not complied with the laws and ordinances of the gospel will receive a lesser reward. Good enough is not your destiny as a child of the Most High God. Be determined to become everything God created you to be. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7
On the Successive Advances in the Human Mind
Every second of life is precious. Humans are a mechanism of adjustment. There are people who read in books to convince themselves there is a God. Nothing but vast wisdom and unlimited power should dare to sweep off people in multitudes; for it is only the one that can know the necessity of the judgment; and what is there, short of the other, that can replace the creatures of the Lord? Morality does not consist in external observances, but in the mind and heart. To love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength is all consuming and all encompassing. People reap only the harvest they have sown in the World, even in this life, God is just. Sin is less an injury inflicted than a contempt of God; virtue, less doing what is respectable than living in love with God. There is vice in the concupiscence of the flesh and in the concupiscence of the soul; sin, however, does not lie in these inclinations, but in the intentions and consents that grow out of them, and so virtue is also exercised by not consenting to what should not be done. The deed itself adds nothing to the morality, good or bad, of what is purposed. This is a matter of personal conscience, which is binding even when it is mistaken. We are obliged to strain after what is really good. Our desires, be they spiritual or temporal, should be rooted in a love of the Lord. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9
The soul selects its own society, then it shuts the door. We never know how high we are until we are caused to rise; and then, if we are true to God’s plan, our statures touch the skies. A person possessed by love of beauty is to progress from bodily beauty to beauty of the mind. The intellect is incorporeal and constructs likeness, effigies, of things outside of it. To all who have faith in God, know that you are a solid connection for powerful blessings to those in your life and the future generations. If we are steadfast and do not waver in our faith, the Lord will increase our capacity to rise ourselves above the challenges of life. Ask with shameless persistence, the importunity that will not be denied, returns with the answer in hand. If we will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and serve hi with all diligence of mind, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver one out of bondage. When one would conceive of that great Being truly and fully, one must be able to realize the duration of eternity, obliterate the little periods of time and chronology, which require a starting and a resting-place in our human minds—soar out of the reach of the sickly atmospheres which surround these little planets, and stand erect in the broad and fathomless light of God’s own atmosphere. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9
Superiority to fate is difficult to learn. It is not conferred by any, but possible to earn. A pittance at a time, until, to one’s surprise, the soul with strict economy subsists until paradise. Life up your self-esteem, and rejoice, and put your trust in God. Look to the future through the eyes of faith and replace your fears with the optimism of hope born of faith. Do not waver in placing your trust in God regardless of circumstance. All our difficulties are only platforms for the manifestations of God’s grace, power, and love. Mortal life is a period of testing where we will be proven to see if we will do all things that the Lord God shall command us. This will require unwavering faith in Christ even in times of great difficulty. If anyone would tell you the shortest, surest way to happiness, one must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. It will require that we press forward with steadfast faith in Christ, being led by the Spirit and trusting that God will provide for our needs. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn into a blessing. The true peace of God begins at any spot a thousand miles from the nearest land. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9
Long may it remain in this mixed World a point not easy of decision, which is the more beautiful of the Almighty’s goodness—the delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch, and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough hard hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment. God blesses us according to our faith. Faith is the source of living with divine purpose and eternal perspective. Faith is a vital, living force manifest in our soul. Reason, properly working, enables human beings to discover, or rediscover, Nature beneath the concealing corruptions of religion, social structure, convention, and indeed, beneath the often-misleading impressions of sense experience not properly organized by reason. Though the average enlightened individual would not admit this, this nature is in part a hypostatized conception of the beautiful and the good. It must be understood against two antitheses. First, there is the super or supranatural—the miracle, the revealed truths of religion. For the enlightened, all these are simply figments of the imagination, nonexistent, indeed at bottom priestly inventions designed to keep people ignorant of the ways of reason and nature. Second, there is the unnatural. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9
Unlike the supernatural, the unnatural does indeed exists. The unnatural, the artificial, the burdens of irrational customs and traditions accumulated through historic time, are for the enlightened the form evil takes in the World. It must be noted that in simple naïve logic the enlightened had as much trouble over the problem of the origin of evil as did the Christian. How the natural got to be unnatural was a question as difficult to answer as how an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good God allowed Adam to bite into the apple. It is cruel that, as every advance made by the human species removes it still father from its primitive state, the more discoveries we make, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of making the most important of all. Thus, it is, in one sense, by our very study of human beings, that the know of people is put out of our power. It is natural to think that, while the condition of some people grew better or worse, and they were acquiring various good or bad qualities not inherent in their nature, there were others who continued a longer time in their original condition. Such is doubtless the first source of the inequality of humankind, which it is much easier to point out thus in general terms, than to assign with precision to its actual causes. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9
Nature is quite simply the good—a set of ethical and aesthetic goals or standards. In specific content, these standards are not in fact greatly different from those of the Judeo-Christian tradition. There always comes of time of moral looseness, cynicism, and corruption among a few circles; and in such circles, there often cropped up what we should call the strain of social consciousness. However, enlightened people are hardly self-indulgent sensualists and there is a touch of puritanism in the enlightened, as in almost all who really hope to make humanity over completely. There has once been on Earth a state of nature in which people lived free from evil. Through reformation we are trying to recapture a past we believe is much superior to our present. Many want to return to a state where the Earth is left to its natural fertility and covered with immense forests, whose trees were never mutilated by the axe and we can experience natural salvation—the attainment by everyone of immortality in this flesh on this Earth. A climate of favorable enterprise. This model—an optimistic, this Worldly belief in the power of human beings, brought up rationally from infancy on as nature meant them to be, to achieve steady and unlimited progress toward material comfort and spiritual happiness for all people on this Earth is what many would like to manifest. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9
God is a highly rationalistic construct—the clockmaker God, who had to exist in order to start this Newtonian World machine running, and guaranteed that it would never run down. We place all of our trust in God and in the teachings of his prophets, and renew our covenants with God. It is important to serve God with all of our heart, regardless of the complex situations of life, and by the unwavering faith in Christ, we will become free from the captivity of sin, doubt, unbelief, unhappiness, and suffering. Faith will allow us to receive all of the promised blessings from our loving Heavenly Fathers. God is real, he lives, and he loves. God listens to our prayers at all times. God produces light from the womb of darkness. Anything good, however bitter, which shows us that there is such a law as retribution, that we are not the sport of blind chance or a triumphant fiend, but that there is a God who judges the Earth—righteous to repay every person according to their works. What are the comprehensible terrors of human compared with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! Once we are convinced that there is a God, and that we are here to save our souls, it is surely folly to think of anything except God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9
Nothing is ever wasted in the Kingdom of God. Not one tear, not all our pain, not the unanswered questions or the seemingly unanswered prayers. Nothing will be wasted if we give our lives to God. And if we are willing to be patient until the grace of God is made manifest, whether it takes ten years or one hundred, it will be worth the wait. God Almighty is just and gracious, and gives not his assent to rash and inhuman curses. It times of difficulty, one should keep smiling and pray even more for God to apply justice and salvation in our lives. Though some may wish that in the very long run the masses could perhaps become fully enlightened, these people are also convinced that for the foreseeable future, ignorance and superstition has so far corrupted ordinary men and women that the only hope is to reform their whole environment from above. However, do not focus on the problem. What we focus on, we tend to magnify. The best thing to do is envision the outcome you want and focus on God so that you can magnify God in your life. Many people are like who long need shepherds—good shepherds because the urban masses are hopelessly corrupted. Therefore, be a cultural engineer, as it may be necessary to compel people to be free. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9
People are not really free when they are sinning, so many enlightened people feel that they are not really free when they are behaving contrary to their clear dictates of reason. When we hold on to things that we should let go, refusing to forgive, remembering the worst, we only poison our own lives. The root of bitterness will always produce bitter fruit. Bitter people do not have good relationship. They are too negative. When we are bitter, it affects our attitudes and taints everything about us. That is why some people you know are suffering extreme hardship do not show it publicly. People pick up and energy and energy affects others. If you are around someone who is pleasant, you are more likely to be happy and have good feelings towards them. Therefore, do not let feelings of bitterness take root. No one owes me anything. I am not at a disadvantage. I did not get left out, shortchanged, passed over, nor cheated. I am equipped, empowered, and dignified. Nothing can stop God from operating except the lack of faith in the reality of truth. All the forces of darkness cannot keep me from my destiny. No matter what comes my way I am not going to be bitter, angry, offended, nor will I seem to be angry all the time because I have been treated unfairly or feel I am not as good as other people. My situation may not be fair, but I know a secret. My God is still on the Throne. He will may my wrongs right and I will keep moving forward. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9
Eternity Enables the Endeavoring Again
Exists in every human nature a goal. When I was younger, we lived in a large house, and my dad would give me twelve, one hundred dollar bills. One for everyday of the twelve days of Christmas. That was his way of showing love. He believed that money and God was the foundation of happiness. Kindnesses is the essence of a celestial life. Gentleness is how a Christlike person treats others. Consideration should permeate all of our words and actions at work, school, church, and especially in our houses. It is true that fear can have a powerful influence over our actions and behavior. Fear is so pandemic in our society that in sometimes constitutes the predominant ruling emotion of our World, as we know it. For many people, fear is so all-pervasive that their life really constitutes one giant set of compensatory devices to conquer their troubles. Nevertheless, the influence tends to be temporary and shallow. People who are fearful may say and do things, but they do not feel the right things. They often feel helpless and resentful, even angry. Overtime these feelings lead to mistrust, defiance, and even rebellion. Unfortunately, this is a misguided approach to life, and it grieves me to hear people who exercise unrighteousness in their interactions with others. Often times people may condemn bullying in others, but they cannot see it in themselves. There may be moments when we are tempted to justify our actions by believing that a good outcome excuses any wrong committed to attain it. #RandolphHarris 1 of 7
Psychoanalysis has been justly called the psychology of depths because it emphasizes the role of the of the unconscious mental processes. Illness can result from a conflict from the ego and the super-ego. Fear rarely has the power to change our hearts, and it will never transform us into people who love what is right and who want to obey the Heavenly Father. We live in ignorance of the desires that offend morality, the desires that nature has forced upon us and after their unveiling we may well prefer to avert our gaze from the scenes of our unrighteousness. As a result, the Heavens will withdraw themselves and the Spirit of the Lord is grieved. In every society customs are pervasive, concerning with almost every aspect of life, yet many are concerned with describing how to do something rather than with dictating that we should do it. They determine the right ways of doing things. For instance, customs do not tell us what we must eat, but tells us only when, where, and how to eat. This suggests that customs may, perhaps, serve the same function with regard to morality by telling us how to do what morality tells us to do. Recognizing this, customs are a means for standardizing behavior so that we will be able to know what to expect from our fellow people. #RandolphHarris 2 of 7
Is Heaven a physician? Our Father in Heaven loves us, his children, and this love surpasses our ability to comprehend. This does not mean that God condones nor overlooks behaviors that are bad. However, God wants to change our behavior, nature, and heart. God wants each of us to believe in him and confront our fears and become stronger and righteous. By kindness, and pure knowledge, we shall greatly enlarge our soul with privilege and love, and we will be in a better position to attract the powers of Heaven for ourselves, our families, and the others in our lives. The function of laying down standardized action patterns is, of course, not exclusively fulfilled by custom. It is also a function of law, of professional and social organizations, and even of advertising. God motivates through persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned. God is on our side. He loves us, and when we experience hardship, he wants us to rise up, try again, and become stronger. For instance, The Jefferson’s is successful situational comedy that was filmed in the 1970s. The main character, George Jefferson, grew up in a housing project for economically challenged people and he remembered how miserable it was. Some days, his family could only afford one meal a day. So, George made a promise that no one would ever suffer in the apartment he grew up in. George had faith that God would answer his prayers, and was thankful for life. George did not see his struggle as a waste of time, but a jounery toward enlightenment. Our loving Heavenly Father knows that choosing to develop a spirit of gratitude will bring us true joy and great happiness. #RandolphHarris 3 of 7
God never made a promise that was too good to be true, and we must also keep our promises. When George Jefferson grew up, he married and became a successful businessman. He owned seven dry cleaning stores, and was able to afford a three-bedroom apartment in a luxury high-rise building, located in Manhattan, New York USA. George sent his son, Lionel, to college, and he became a prosperous engineer. George remembered how meager his existence was in his youth and would send the family that now lived in the apartment he grew up in $400.00 a month, and gifts for Christmas and a tree. The family that lived there was also suffering economic hardships. The father used the money to go to TV repair school, so he would be able to get a career that would allow him to provide for his wife and son and move into a middle-class community. That is how the love of God works. We are here to share our blessings and help uplift others. How crucial customs are for communal living becomes apparent if one tried to imagine what it would be like to be thrown into a society where one knew everything expect its customs. Without knowledge of customs one would not be able to fulfill some of the simplest of moral injunctions, like the injunction to love and respect others. One would not know what one’s commitments were or how to honor them. One would not know how to show gratitude or solicitude for others, how to be decent and honest, or how to avoid hurting the feelings of others. #RandolphHarris 4 of 7
We are blessed beyond measure to live in a day of unparalleled prosperity, enlightenment, and advantage. Most of all, we are blessed to have the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which gives us unique perspective on the World’s dangers and shows us how to either avoid these dangers or deal with them. When I think of these blessings, I offer praises to our Heavenly Father for his never-ending love for all of his children. God does not want his children to be fearful nor dwell on the evils of the World for God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. Let us in word and in deed share with our fellow humans the amazing and awe-inspiring message of God’s plan of happiness. May our motive be our love for God and for his children, for they are our brothers and sisters. This is the beginning of what we can do in return for so much. There is one thing we can do to make life sweeter, more joyful, even glorious—we can be grateful! General requirements of morality transcend every particular group, but they cannot be executed apart from customs. We have to operate within the context of custom. As disciples of Christ, we are commanded to thank the Lord our God in all things, and let our heart be full of thanks unto God. #RandolphHarris 5 of 7
In many times thought peace had come, when peace was far away. It can be easy to succumb to the temptation of describing the practices of other societies, particularly primitive ones, as customs, while refusing to do so for our own practices with regard to the same matters. When we do not understand the reason for a procedure or practice, we assume that it must be just a custom, that has no reason except tradition. Some people wonder what they have to be thankful for when their World is falling apart? It is hard to develop a spirit of gratitude if our thankfulness is only proportional to the number of blessings when can count. We can choose to be grateful, no matter what. This type of gratitude transcends whatever is happening around us. It surpasses disappointment, discouragement, and despair. When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, this custom is a precept whose claim to validity is based solely on the contention that it is generally acknowledged and practiced by the community and is of ancient origin. It is justified because when we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the closeness and warmth of Heaven’s embrace. #RandolphHarris 6 of 7
When we do not understand the reason for a procedure or practice, we assume that it must be just a custom, that it has no reason except tradition. We sometimes think that being grateful is what we do after our problems are solved, but how terribly myopic is that. We will miss much of life by wanting for our prayers and dreams to be fulfilled. Being grateful in times of distress does not mean that we are pleased with our circumstances, it means that through the eyes of faith we look beyond our present-day challenges. This is a gratitude of the soul. It is a gratitude that heals the heart and expands the mind. We do not understand the trials of life, but we must trust that one day we will. In the end, we will have glorious, perfect, and immortal bodies, unburden by sickness or disability; and the tear of sadness and loss will be replaced with an abundance of happiness and joy. Unchangeable truth and certainty enjoins us in the pursuit of the common good and assures us that by pursuing the common good we achieve happiness and personal perfection. As the great joy of life comes into our souls, it will flood us with it wondrous light, and all sorrow and sadness will feel. #RandolphHarris 7 of 7 
When God Will All Winds Bring Rain
We are accustomed to attach great importance to the universal belief of human kind, it is accepted by us as a convincing argument, that there are gods we infer from the sentiment engrafted in the human mind; nor has any nation ever been found, so far beyond the pale of law and civilization as to deny their existence. God wants to provide for you, as a gift, because he loves you and wants to put the light of truth in your soul, and supply you with a right image of God and a right image of yourself that will establish love, faith, compassion and grace in your soul. The first thing you need to remember is that God knows you, and such knowledge is too wonderful. God wants you to know that he understands. God knows how you think, what you dream about, recognizes your motives, and knows your fears. God knows the things that happened in your life and how exactly you will respond and why. You are understood by God. He is there, he is interacting, and working. God knows infinitely more than you know yourself. Belief in God is instinctive. I believe in some blending of hope and Sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep. #RandolphHarris 1 of 5
All the faculties and feelings of our minds and bodies have their appropriate objects; and the possession of the faculties supposes the existence of those objects. In the eyes, in its very structure, there is light to be seen, and the ear would be unaccountable and inconceivable without the existence of sound. In like manner, our religious feelings and aspirations necessitate the existence of God. The yearning for some kind of God does point toward an in-built hunger in each of us—a hunger has its normal gratification. This is true of physical hunger, of love, and sleep, and of our craving for beauty. If, similarly, our religious hunger did not have its proper gratification, it would be difficult to see how it got built into our natures in the first place. What is it doing there? Very often there is an insatiable instinct that demands friendship, love, and intimate communion, but is forced to pine in empty forms; a hunger of the heart, which finds there is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human heart. May not all human characters frequently be traced back to impressions made at so early a period, that none but discerning eyes would ever suspect their existence. #RandolphHarris 2 of 5
The belief is that the human mind was made by God, who would not deceive his creatures. There is in fact no race without religion and even where there is belief in plurality of gods, it is invariably found that the religion recognizes a supreme deity, the rulers of gods and humans. The supreme deity of primitive religions often lacks some of the characteristics attributed to God by Christian and Jewish monotheists. However, this does not affect the argument, since an idea of God does not cease to deserve that name because it is variant. A person may be said to believe in God if he or she believes in a Supreme Being, personal and intelligent, to whom humans owe honor and reverence, regardless of what else one also believes or fails to believe. God, himself, goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. And God cannot lie (you will find that in truth). God’s will at times seems distant and quiet, but, in his wisdom, he can use that to draw you close to him. Do you seek him out at those times? It is possible you feel God is not by your side because you have turned your back on or walked away from him? This is not the ground of our own faith. We do not reason ourselves into belief that there is a God; human beings are religious by nature and God-seekers. They know in their hearts they can trust in God’s promises and rejoice in his presence. #RandolphHarris 3 of 5
The hunger for God is an expression that invariably develops as a result of certain deprivations and traumatic experiences. People who suffer from insufficient contact with other human beings and who do not find the natural World satisfying will tend to experience longings for something supernatural. They will know that God is on their side and his love for them has not ended. God has remained on your side. You can never feel lonely among people who love you; they may not understand what you are going through, at least not entirely. However, there is someone who understands your heart completely and that is God. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46.1). So many troubling situations in life can leave you feeling alone and insecure, but God is a very present help at all times. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Somewhere deep down in us is stored the secret, and when we are searching the wrong place, we know it. The secret wants to be discovered and will not let us go in peace a way that is not ours. A person believes in God’s existence and it seems quite plain that one is believing in something—that there is such a thing as what one believes in, and that this something is God’s existence. #RandolphHarris 4 of 5
God’s unity, God’s will, God’s knowledge and thought, and God’s wisdom and goodness, God’s many names, and God’s relation to creation are open to the passions that have taught reflection and perfect love. God is a type of poetry which can exalt the relations of the humblest human beings. The lover of God is always called happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed indifference to sorrow outside. I am glad at least in my life that I have found God, who is here forever to see me though. I have found strength in God. I only pray that I have shown you a brighter day because that is all that I am living for. Do not worry what is to come because in my mind we will always stay here always in love. Divine providence, prophecy, and immortality are not dependent on intellectual perfection, but rather on the love and reverence for God, which is the purpose of the Divine Law and the Universe. It is the substance of the soul itself, rather than the acquired intellect, which survives death. What God says is best; is best, though all the people in the World may be against it. There is just too much evidence to deny what is happening. It is happening every day. See, all your angry enemies lie there, confused and humiliated; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. #RandolphHarris 5 of 5
Randolph Harris II International Institute 