Latest / Scripture Central / ”Stand Forever” Ep. 6 | Chaos | Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge

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”Stand Forever” Ep. 6 | Chaos | Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge · Scripture Central

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How amazingly blessed we are to have God's commandments.
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Living by one's own truth leads to chaos.
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Truth is absolute and leads to order and stability.
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Some people prefer to drift. You can't drift into the
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presence of God. One evening I lay on my bed in
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hopes of getting some relief from pain in my back.
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I drifted into another dimension and a wave of and profound
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regret washed over me. It was a million times more than
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the Blues. This was profound, paralyzing,
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unrelenting sorrow. It was hail.
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That conception of hail lies in 2 words too late.
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Hello again, my name is Larry Corbridge and this is episode 6
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of the Stand Forever series. In the last episode, we
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considered God's greatest gifts, His Son, His Spirit and His
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life, without which chaos, darkness and death prevail.
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The next three episodes are about those awful conditions and
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as a result, they are a bit gloomy.
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But, but take heart, there is light at the end of the tunnel.
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Beginning in episode 9, Speaking of Adam and Eve, Lehigh taught
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that they could not know joy without also knowing misery.
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And similarly, we can't appreciate light without passing
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through darkness along the way as well.
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Without God and his Son, without his spirit and life, chaos,
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darkness, and death prevail. Without intervention, all things
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trend toward disorder and chaos. Chaos is a state of confusion
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and disorder without meaning, purpose, or direction.
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The natural state of all things trends towards chaos.
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That process of degradation is broadly defined as entropy.
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Without the intervention of focused energy to counteract
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entropy, all things are continually breaking down,
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trending toward disorder. A man remembered that when his
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parents membership in the church was withdrawn, they're followed
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in his words, a complete absence of the spirit in the home, and
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the violence and abuse reached higher proportions and increased
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in frequency, making life hell. The absence of God and his
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spirit leads to chaos. God not only offsets entropy,
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but also creates order out of chaos.
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And of course, the best example of divine energy counteracting
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entropy and creating order out of chaos is the creation of the
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heavens and the earth. And then the Lord said, Let us
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go down. And they went down at the
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beginning. And they, that is, the gods,
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organized and formed the heavens, and the earth
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organized. And the gods organized the
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lights and the expanse of the heaven, and caused them to
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divide the day from the night, and organized them to be for
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signs and seasons, and for days and for years.
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And the gods organized them to be for lights and the expanse of
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the heaven to give light upon the earth.
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And the gods organize the 2 great lights, the greater light
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to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night.
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So the gods went down to organize man in their own image
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and the image of the gods to form they him male and female to
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form they them. Another example of divine order
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over chaos is the resurrection restoring all things to their
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proper order. Almatot, I say unto thee, my
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son, that the plan of restoration is requisite with
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the justice of God, for it is requisite that all things should
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be restored to their proper order.
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Behold, it is It is requisite and just, according to the power
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and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be
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restored to its body, and that every part of the body should be
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restored to itself. End Quote.
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While God is the Creator, Satan is the destroyer.
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Without intervention, entropy and chaos prevails spiritually
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and individually as well as physically and universally.
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As surely as a truck parked in the field will eventually rushed
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and turned to dust, We also trend towards spiritual decay
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and disorder without God's intervention.
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Chaos, darkness and death are all consequences of not keeping
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God's commandments. The Lord has said Behold mine
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house is a House of order. Say it the Lord God, and not a
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House of confusion. How amazingly blessed we are to
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have God's commandments. What safety and protection and
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order come from keeping them? Pick pick any commandment and
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consider the consequences of not keeping it.
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For example, disregard for thou shalt not kill, or thou shalt
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not commit adultery, or thou shalt not steal, or thou shall
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not bear false witness. All lead to chaos, darkness, and
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death. As for, for example, thou shalt
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not bear false witness. After nearly 30 years of
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practicing law, I asked myself, what have I seen, what have I
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observed over that period of time?
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And the most prominent trend was a much greater propensity among
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people generally to not tell the truth, to lie, and to do so even
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underoath. The result is chaos in commerce,
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in the judicial system, and in life in general.
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If you can't rely on what someone says, chaos is the
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consequence. Think of pornography or the Word
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of Wisdom, and the consequence of addictions resulting in
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broken lives and broken families, chaos, darkness and
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death. Think of the law of chastity.
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It is amazing to me that God has granted to us in this life his
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children, immortality, the power of procreation.
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I mean, it makes sense, but it's such an incredible power, the
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power to create life. What could be?
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What greater trust could be given?
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I wonder. I wonder what what is greater,
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the power to create worlds or the power to create life?
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Worlds are just orbs in space without life.
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Life is what gives everything meaning.
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So what would be the consequence if all of God's children without
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number had the power to create, to procreate rather, with
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whomever, wherever, throughout all eternity?
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What would be the consequence of that?
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Obviously chaos. Chaos would be the consequence.
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Total, absolute chaos. Would it make sense for God to
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endow us with that godly power throughout all of eternity if we
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do not learn to use it appropriately here and now?
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God's house is organized by families.
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We are given these very few years of mortality to learn to
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use this sacred power appropriately, that we might
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retain the same power throughout eternity.
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God's house is a House of orders, I've said many times,
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and disregard for the rules of the house leads to chaos.
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Truth is absolute and leads to order and stability while living
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by one's own truth. Marching to the beat of 1's own
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drum, doing 1's own thing leads to chaos.
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It is one of the primary reasons for the restoration.
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Speaking of the conditions of the world at the time of the
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restoration, the Lord said these words.
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They will not hear the voice of the Lord, he said, neither the
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voice of His servants, for they have strayed from mine
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ordinances and have broken mine everlasting covenant.
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They seek not the Lord to establish His righteousness, but
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every man listen to this. Every man walketh in his own
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way, and after the image of his own God, whose image is in the
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likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol
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which waxeth old, and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon
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the great, which shall fall. Wherefore I, the Lord, knowing
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the calamity which should come upon the inhabitants of the
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earth, called upon My servant Joseph Smith junior, and spake
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unto him from heaven, and gave him what commandments?
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And if that if that were not enough, the Lord has promised to
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give us more commandments as we obey those we now have, saying,
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Yeah, blessed are they whose feet stand upon the land of
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Zion, who have obeyed my gospel. For they shall receive for their
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reward the good things of the earth, and it shall bring forth
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in its strength, and they shall also be crowned with blessings
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from above. Yeah, and with commandments, not
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a few. And with revelations in their
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time, they that are faithful and diligent before me.
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Lack of purpose leads to chaos as well.
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Without God, life has no meaning other than what we may conjure
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up on our own. And without purpose we wander.
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We can't go where we don't know to go.
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What is life's purposes? One of the great questions of
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the ages. Without a destination, people
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can't chart a course. They are buffeted by the blows
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and circumstances of life, randomly knocking one in One
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Direction and then another. They drift with the winds, as
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Paul said, toss to and fro, carried about by every wind of
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doctrine and the sleight of men and cunning craftiness.
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The winds don't blow and the currents don't flow toward home.
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You can't drift into the presence of God.
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Some people prefer to drift. Just go with the flow and less
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will be expected. The fewer the expectations, the
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fewer the disappointments. They prefer to keep things vague
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and foggy so they are never off course.
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You can't be off course if you never set 1.
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You can't miss if you don't aim free and easy.
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They avoid the disappointment of failure until they have failed
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so badly there is no way to ignore it.
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Other people drift without knowing it.
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They think they have a destination toward which they
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are sailing. They believe that they have
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charted the course of their life.
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They can tell you what it is if you ask, but it is usually
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something formulated in the moment.
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It may be a star in their sky, sure enough, but it is not
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really their North Star. They are vaguely aware it is
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there. They can point it out if you
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ask, but they don't really take their bearings from it, at least
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not often. Their course is not fixed on it.
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They think it is, but it isn't. They drift without knowing it
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unless checked against the North Star, the winds blow and the
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currents flow toward the shores of desolation, waste and chaos.
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One evening I lay on my bed in hopes of getting some relief
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from pain in my back. My wife Jackie was close by in
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an adjoining room. As I rested, I drifted into
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another dimension and a wave of profound regret washed over me.
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Although I was fully awake, my state of mind was really more
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dreamlike. I was aware of other people
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overcome by extreme overwhelming sadness and regret, and I felt
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what they were feeling. The despair was so overwhelming
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I unconsciously began to moan and hoping to find relief from
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something far greater than the pain in my back.
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I stood for a moment and then dropped my knees, unable to
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stand. Jackie then rushed into the room
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to find me on my knees with my head in my hands, trying to
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understand what was happening. She, of course, was alarmed, but
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I could not explain to her what was going on because I didn't
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really understand it. Words can never adequately
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describe the depths of this despair.
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This was not mere despondency. It was a million times more than
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the Blues. This was profound, irreparable,
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paralyzing, debilitating, unrelenting sorrow.
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It was hail, but not hail of the wicked, rather the hail of
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regret. This was the desolation of
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waste, wasted talents, wasted time, wasted opportunities that
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had come and gone, never again to return.
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It was the clear realization of what could have been, but what
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will never be, because the time to act had passed forever more.
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Jacob wrote, famously wrote really.
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But woe unto him that has the law given, yeah, that has all
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the commandments of God like unto us, and that transgresseth
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them. And that wasted the days of his
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probation. For awful is his state.
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For some reason I know something about the awfulness of that
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state. I know what woe feels like.
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I'm not sure why, but I know about the hell of waste and
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regret. An Italian composer, Kim Carlo
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Minotti, said this hail begins on the day when God grants us a
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clear vision of all that we might have achieved, of all the
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gifts we might have wasted, of all that we might have done
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which we did not do. For me that conception of hail
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lies in 2 words. He said too late.
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The Lord has said, for behold, this life is the time for men to
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prepare to meet God. Yeah, behold, the day of this
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life is the day for man to perform their laborers.
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And now, as I said unto you before, as I have had so many
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witnesses, therefore I beseech of you that you do not
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procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end.
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For after this day of life, which is given for us to prepare
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for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in
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this life, then cometh the night of darkness, wherein there can
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be no labor performed. Then continuing on, he says, You
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cannot say when you are brought to that awful crisis, that I
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will repent, that I will return to my God.
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Nay, you cannot say this. For that same spirit which doth
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possess your bodies at the time that you do go out of this life,
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that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that
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eternal world. For behold, if you have
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procrastinated the day of your repentance, even until death,
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behold, you have become subjected to the spirit of the
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devil, and he doth seal you his chilling words.
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Therefore the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and
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hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you.
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And this is the final state of the wicked.
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End Quote. A few months later, I spoke with
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a mission president about 3 disobedient missionaries.
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He recently had learned about their most recent escapades and
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was wondering if he should send them home with a dishonorable
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release. One had already gone home,
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having completed the term of his mission, and the other two had
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only three weeks remaining. I referenced the foregoing
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scripture with him and observed that the time for them to repent
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and perform their laborers insofar as their mission was
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concerned, the time to prove their faithfulness and qualify
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for the supreme blessings of heaven as missionaries had sadly
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passed. And at least in that sense,
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awful was their state, regardless of what decision was
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made. Relative to how and when they
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return home, time had passed them by.
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I also recalled talking to missionaries on one occasion
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about the opportunities of their mission and how their
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performance as missionaries would largely determine their
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performance in all aspects of life after their missions.
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As we broke for lunch, 2 missionaries in different parts
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of the Chapel remained seemingly transfixed in their seats after
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everyone else had left. They sat alone in different
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parts of the empty Chapel. Both had the same catatonic
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stare. They both were at the end of
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their missions and both had been somewhat marginal in their
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commitment and performance as missionaries.
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Neither had really given the full measure of devotion.
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I knew why they remained glued to their seats and I knew what
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they were thinking. I mourn for them, but there was
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little I could do because to some extent they had wasted the
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wasted the days of their mission.
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Awful was their state, and there was nothing I could do to change
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it. Trying to go in too many
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directions is almost as bad a strategy as drifting.
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In a BYU devotional address, Tyler J Jarvis, professor of
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mathematics at BYU, described the astounding mathematical
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difficulty of plotting the best route among multiple
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destinations, which is especially important for
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delivery companies like UPS. With 10s of thousands of trucks
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on the road every day, 10s of millions of dollars would be
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saved annually if each driver could shave just one mile off
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the daily route. The problem is how to find the
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best route with multiple destinations.
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With three destinations, there are 6 possible routes.
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With four destinations, there are 24 possible rounds.
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With five stops, 120 routes, 10 stops, 3,268,000 routes.
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If there are 20 stops, there are, and I'm not sure I can even
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say this, 2 quintillion, 432 quadrillion, 902 trillion,
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8,176,640,000 routes for 20 stops.
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If a computer could check a billion routes per second, it
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would still take 27 years to check all possible routes for 20
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destinations. An average UPS driver makes 120
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deliveries a day for 120 destinations.
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There are so many possible routes, they cannot be stored in
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all of the memory of any computer in existence.
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If we had a computer with as many processors as particles in
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the universe, and if it could check a trillion routes per
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second, it would still take more than the age of the universe to
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calculate. This dilemma has been dubbed the
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Traveling Salesman Problem, and $1,000,000 prize has been
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offered for anyone who can find an algorithm that solves this
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problem in a reasonable amount of time.
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We may solve the Traveling Salesman problem later in
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episode 10 if I remember to come back to this and see if we can
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claim the $1,000,000 prize. The reason for all of this is to
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simply say that many people are also trying to determine the
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best course to multiple destinations such as being a
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good spouse, a parent, a family member, career success, church
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service, development of talents, recreation, financial security,
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education, community service, personal development, physical
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fitness and health, personal time and more.
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Each one of those 13 destinations or objectives that
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I just mentioned subdivides into a dozen more, for a total of 156
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destinations. That's more than the UP the UPS
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driver. How best to do all of that is a
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much greater problem than the dilemma facing delivery
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companies. Imposing order to something
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inherently chaotic is is a hard knot to untie.
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Some people drift, while others try to go in too many
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directions. While some are content with
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doing little, others are trying to do too much, racing all over
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the map, trying to go everywhere but aiming nowhere.
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Either strategy is flawed, they all or both rather lead to
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chaos. Information overload also leads
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to chaos. Too much information.
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It's like trying to go in too many different directions.
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Their struggle to stay afloat, if not swim in the daily tsunami
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of information, misinformation and disinformation is a life and
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death struggle. More than ever before, we are
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flooded with messages that are good or bad, true or false, and
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much in between. Most people are plugged into
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messaging in one form or another.
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Most of the time, if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of
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good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.
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If we are smart because we become what we can, we consume.
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But even in the category of virtuous, lovely, or of good
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report or praiseworthy, there is much more than what we can begin
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to swallow, much less assimilate.
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Whether we drown in good Clearwater or brackish dark
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water, either way we drown. We live in the dispensation of
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the fullness of times and it is really full.
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There is so much available to us that is good and uplifting, but
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overall it is more than we can assimilate.
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So much so that even if we had our own personal security system
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that only permitted the truth and the good to filter through,
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we would still be overwhelmed and at be at risk of drowning
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and good, even good things because there is so much.
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One good thing dilutes another which diluted and obscured the
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one before. And then another comes along
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pushing to the back everything else and on and on until nothing
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makes a difference. We can be awash and even drown
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in good things. We are bombarded by so much that
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the whole of it is chaos. Whether the messaging is good or
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bad, overall it is chaos, and chaos is never good.
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God's house is a House of order, but how does one order a
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tsunami? How does 1 sift through it all?
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Not not only separate good from bad and true from error, but
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recognize and clutch to the few most important things among all
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the good things. Only God can tell us who we are,
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show us who we can become and how to do it.
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Only He can reveal what is most important.
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Only He can offset spiritual decay, disorder and chaos and
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also edify, build up and organize man in His image
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spiritually, mentally, emotionally as well as
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physically. Only He can give us the strength
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to bear up the burdens of life. Only He can bless us.
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Without God, chaos prevails.