LOVE SEES INDIVIDUALS, NOT GROUPS

Chieko Okazaki was a member of the General Relief Society Presidency a few years back, and she has said some great things - here is one I came across in preparation for my lesson today:

Sometimes our love is impatient. We want quick answers and hasty solutions. Sometimes we feel such urgency that we would violate the free agency of others. This is not a mistake that our Heavenly Father and Jesus make. Their love is deep and powerful but it is also a patient love. For every Paul struck down on the road to Damascus, for every Alma the Younger who is rebuked by an angel, there are hundreds who are allowed to go on choosing and choosing and choosing, until a series of choices gradually leads them to make the right choice and the hunger of their spirits for the Holy Spirit makes the gospel sweet to them.

The older I get, the more I come to acknowledge this truth.

ULTERIOR MOTIVES

Do you ever think about why you actually do things?

Even our charitable actions - how often do we actually do things for appearances, to improve our public image?

We had an interesting lesson in church today, about being aware of our real underlying intentions. That even good, honorable events may be motivated by purely selfish concerns about our own common appearance.

The class was, understandably, quiet. Suddenly we were all self-conscious - wait a minute, was that why we were here at church, for pure self-interest? Were our benevolent attributes only put on for display?

It was extremely thought-provoking - enough that this may take several blogs to fully discuss.