This Book

Is one that I have started multiple times. I am not sure how or why I have never been all the way through it because it isn't long, and it is so...good. 

It is the only book that I have had the urge to highlight more than is left unhighlighted. If the reader really takes to heart what good ol' Neal A. is trying to say, it can be transformational. 

As in, your life can change. 

Elder Maxwell had a way of putting things that requires a lot of dictionary use for me. He is so eloquent and thorough. 

To help myself not let this get put on the back burner again, every week I am going to share here some highlights from each chapter. I know this is a heavier topic than I usually blog about, but it is so personally important, that I would feel I was cheating if I didn't share.

.   .   .   .   .

Chapter One

"This is still the 'great queston' for mortals. Anciently, it was whether there shall be an atoning Jesus Christ. Now it is whether there was an atoning Christ who lived and who still lives. Other questions are insignificant by comparison, since an affirmative answer to the 'great question' eliminates the need even to ask certain lesser questions." 

"It is ironical even to write of the virtue of meekness, especially in a world so much taken up with assertiveness, aggressiveness, and selfish, insensitive individualism. This virtue will seem anachronistic in the world, which, ironically, is failing for want of it whether in high political places or in marriages and families." 

"It is not simply a matter of our having received mild encouragement to become meek and lowly. Rather, meekness is at the center of an astonishing invitation and commandment."

"Furthermore, in the exchange between Jesus and a righteous young man, we can see how one missing quality cannot be fully compensated for by other qualities, however praiseworthy."

"What the unmeek actually do is refuse to enter the realm of their own spiritual possibilities."

Speaking about Amulek in the Book of Mormon, "He is a classic case of an essentially good man being out of touch with the great spiritual realities; he resisted the things of the Spirit because, though he was basically good, he was preoccupied with the cares of the world."

"{This} is the Lord's church, and those who are too eager to steady it and too quick to focus upon a single issue or concern will fail to comprehend the important undergirding function of meekness that includes trust in the Lord."

"Meekness is neither alarmist nor shoulder-shrugging unconcern. It involves shoulder-squaring self-discipline, and what follows is the special composure that meekness brings."