Neal A. Maxwell Quotes on God (17 Quotes)

... Our God is a God of love. He waits with open arms, and the unfolding of His merciful plan of salvation is not only therefore the mark of divine power but also the mark of God's relentless, redeeming love. It is a point well worth pondering because, among other reasons, it will help us to understand better why God, through the prophets, denounces sin and corruption in such scalding terms. He loves all of us, His spirit sons and daughters, but hates our vices. His denunciation of those vices may, if we are not careful, seem to obscure the enormous and perfect love He has for us.

Some mistakenly misread the mercy and graciousness of God. For instance, some partial believers are always scolding God, or disregarding Him, because of the observable and lamentable consequences of our misuse of God's gift to us of moral agency. It is as if a teenage son, given his first car, promptly had an accident with resulting pain, suffering, and expense, and the errant son then railed at his father for permitting the suffering resulting from the son's misuse of the gift of the automobile. Granted, in defense of the analogy, mortal parents ought not to give youngsters automobiles too soon, and then only when they have provided wise counsel, driver training, and so on. But there still comes a time when, if they are ever to drive alone, trained teenagers must be left alone at the wheel. The principle is the same with us in the second estate.

There are also flat periods in life which may well be the periods during whichbefore new lessons come the past lessons of life are allowed to seep, quietly and deeply, into the marrow of the soul. These outwardly flat periods, when enduring well may not seem very purposeful,, are probably the times when needed attitudinal alignments are quietly occurring. Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow. An experience is thus not only endured but also absorbed and perused, almost unconsciously, for its value. Such a process takes time. Therefore it is we, not God, who need more time.

Gods anger is kindled not because we have harmed him but because we have harmed ourselves.

It is one of the ironies of religious history that many mortals err in their understanding of the nature of God and end up rejecting not the real God but their own erroneous and stereotypical image of God. Frequently this is because they have thought of God solely in terms of thunderings at Sinai without pondering substance....

We are all aware of man's poor peripheral vision in that his views are often narrow and heedless of what is going on on each side of him. Man's problem is often one of length of view, too. This poorness of perspective often produces wonderful and pathetic paradoxes men who have been given the blessings of life by the grace of God, cry that life is senseless men who have been given breath and voice by God, use the powers of speech to deny God's existence men who have been given the capacity to feel, exult so much in this gift that sensual things sublimate spiritual things and some men who see our reaching out to distant places in our solar system conclude that this special planet is a random, unplanned mutant and refuse to connect the order of physical laws (that makes such journeys into space possible) with an Orderer.

One simply cannot come to a cause like the kingdom of God, with its celestial concepts, and not appreciate and identify with what Ammon said 'Behold, I say unto you, I cannot say the smallest part which I feel.'

There is also the very real possibility that, in the justice of God, one of the reasons He uses the weak and the foolish of the world is so that no argument could be made later that certain people were advantaged in some unfair way by that which was unearnedeither in the premortal life or here. Hence it seems prudent for us to realize that just because one is set apart or ordained to a certain calling or assignment he or she must not expect to be set apart from the stresses of life. There appear to be no immunities.

God does not begin by asking our ability, only our availability, and if we prove our dependability, He will increase our capability.

The submissive will make it through to that final scene, for the word of God will lead the man and woman of Christ 'in a straight and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery ... and land their souls ... at the right hand of God in the kingdom, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers' (Helaman 330) 'who have been ever since the world began ... to go no more out.' (Alma 725)

C. S. Lewis put it well when he gave us the analogy of remodeling the human soul and a living house 'Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently, He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace.' (Mere Christianity New York Macmillan, 1960, p. 174.)

Oh, how great the plan of our God.

It is possible to know when, at least basically, we please God. In fact, Joseph Smith taught that one of the conditions of genuine faith is to have 'an actual knowledge that the course of life which one is pursuing is according to Gods will.'

It is one of the great ironies of human history that some mortals with incorrect understanding of God and life's purposes sometimes scold God because of the abundance of human misery and sufferingwhich, indeed, lies all about us. Such individuals almost dare God to demonstrate His existence by straightening things outand at once But He is a much different kind of Father than that. Surely it is requisite to eternal life that we come to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent (see John 173).

Those who turn against the Church do so to play to their own private gallery, but when, one day, the applause has died down and the cheering has stopped, they will face a smaller audience, the judgment bar of God.

It is only by yielding to God that we can begin to realize His will for us. And if we truly trust God, why not yield to His loving omniscience After all, He knows us and our possibilities much better than do we.

Our God does not indulge us, but He is merciful toward our weaknesses as He strives to tutor us....