My North Star - Grounded, Rooted, Established and Settled

I just listened to one of my "go-to" speeches by Elder Maxwell: "Grounded, Rooted, Established and Settled."

If I ever am down or need a pick-me-up, it is the ultimate perspective giver. It makes all trials and mortal hiccups seem so insignificant compared to the ultimate goal.

Here are some highlights from it.

This is probably one of my all-time favorite quotes, ever:

With the Holy Spirit as our guide, our conscience stays vibrant and alive. Things which we had never supposed come into view. Seeming routine turns out to be resplendent. Ordinary people seem quite the opposite. What we once thought to be the mere humdrum of life gives way to symphonic strains. Circumstances or a mere conversation which look quite pedestrian nevertheless cause a quiet moment of personal resolve, and a decision affecting all eternity is made. Sometimes you and I even sense it as it happens, but there are no bands playing, and there are no headlines. Therefore, a very significant part of getting settled in one's discipleship consists of coming to terms with the realities around us that seem so routine. Routine, like trials, can bring us closer to God or move us away from him. What seems commonplace seldom is.

The Precious perspective:

When we are grounded, rooted, established, and settled, we can have a precious perspective which puts other things in their proper place. This is no small blessing, for it lifts us above our immediate circumstances and concerns, giving us a larger view of things, as this secular episode illustrates:

In 1918, Ernest Rutherford, a physicist, missed a meeting of experts advising the British government on anti-submarine warfare. When criticized for missing the meeting, he replied, "I had been engaged in experiments which suggest that the atom can be artificially disintegrated. If it is true, it is of far greater importance than a war." [George F. Will, The Pursuit of Happiness, and Other Sobering Thoughts (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 228]

And this is one of the best lines from C.S. Lewis on perspective:

I cherish these lines from C. S. Lewis given over 40 years ago to students and scholars at Oxford in the midst of another gathering storm. He said: 

If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. . . . Life has never been normal. . . . Humanity . . . wanted knowledge and beauty now, and would not wait for the suitable moment that never comes. . . . The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the last new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermophylae. This is not apanache; it is our nature. ["Learning in War-Time," The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1980), pp. 21–22] 

Be true, therefore, to the buoyancy in your nature which responds to your innate cravings for truth and beauty in spite of circumstance.

That is SO huge. There are so many things we can come up with as an excuse for why we don't live our best now and seek the highest good now.

And finally:

A hundred years from now, today's seeming deprivations and tribulations will not matter then unless we let them matter too much now. A hundred years from now, today's serious physical ailment will be but a fleeting memory. A thousand years from now, those who now worry and are anguished because they are unmarried will, if they are faithful, have smiles of satisfaction on their faces in the midst of a vast convocation of their posterity. The seeming deprivation which occurs in the life of a single woman who feels she has no prospects of marriage and motherhood properly endured is but a delayed blessing, the readying of a reservoir into which a generous God will pour all that he hath. Indeed, it will be the Malachi measure: "there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Malachi 3:10).
In eternity, the insensitivities and injustices of today's grumpy boss will not matter when we then live in the presence of a God who is perfect in his justice and his mercy. A thousand years from now, today's soul pain inflicted by a betraying or deserting spouse will be gone. A thousand years from now, if one has been misrepresented or misunderstood, the resentment will be gone. So much depends, therefore, upon our maintaining gospel perspective in the midst of ordinariness and the pressures of temptation, tribulation, and deprivation.

This talk helps me to be grounded, rooted, established and settled. This is much needed when there are many things that seem that they will never really materialize. But all I can do is my best, and remember to keep this precious gospel perspective. "All things must fail" says Moroni. But a foundation in the bedrock truth of the gospel will remain unchanged, always steady - something I will always be able to rely on.

My north star.