Lance B. Wickman: Grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot...

Justice - there is an air of nobility about the word. It calls to mind other words like equity, fairness, and truth. It speaks of honor and exactness. It speaks of righteousness. But, sadly, in today's world its application is often anything but noble, honorable, or righteous.

Lance B. Wickman

truth air justice

We really are immortal in the sense that Christ’s Atonement conquers death, both physical and spiritual. And provided we have so lived Today that we have claim on the Atonement’s cleansing grace, we will live forever with God. This life is not so much a time for getting and accumulating as it is a time for giving and becoming. Mortality is the battlefield upon which justice and mercy meet. But they need not meet as adversaries, for they are reconciled in the Atonement of Jesus Christ for all who wisely use Today.

Lance B. Wickman

spiritual giving jesus

One of the great sophistries of our age, I think, is that merely because one has an inclination to do something, that therefore acting in accordance with that inclination is inevitable. That's contrary to our very nature as the Lord has revealed to us. We do have the power to control our behavior.

Lance B. Wickman

acting age thinking

The worst possible thing for any of us - no matter what our temptations, no matter what our mortal inclinations may be - is to become fixated with them, to dwell on them. When we do that, not only do we deny the other things that comprise us, but experience teaches that there will be an increased likelihood that eventually we will simply succumb to the inclination.

Lance B. Wickman

temptation matter may

We live in a very self-absorbed age. I guess it's naturally human to think about my own problems as somehow greater than someone else's. I think when any one of us begins to think that way, it might be well to look beyond ourselves. Who am I to say that I am more handicapped, or suffering more, than someone else?

Lance B. Wickman

suffering self thinking

What we look forward to, and the great promise of the gospel, is that whatever our inclinations are here, whatever our shortcomings are here, whatever the hindrances to our enjoying a fullness of joy here, we have the Lord's assurance for every one of us that those in due course will be removed. We just need to remain faithful.

Lance B. Wickman

faithful joy promise

Isn't it really the significance of the Atonement in a person's life? Doesn't the Atonement really begin to mean something to a person when he or she is trying to face down the challenges of living, whether they be temptations or limitations?

Lance B. Wickman

temptation challenges mean

The willingness to turn to the Savior, the opportunity of going to sacrament service on a Sunday, and really participating in the ordinance of the sacrament... listening to the prayers, partaking of those sacred emblems. Those are opportunities that really help us to come within the ambit of the Savior's Atonement.

Lance B. Wickman

sunday prayer opportunity

Any opportunity to serve in the Church is a blessing.

Lance B. Wickman

church blessing opportunity

One way to read the Book of Mormon is as a book of encounters between fathers and sons. Some of those encounters were very positive and reinforcing on the part of the father of a son. Some were occasions where a father had to tell his son or his sons that the path that they were following was incorrect before the Lord.

Lance B. Wickman

father book son

There's an old maxim which is really true for every parent and that is, 'You haven't failed until you quit trying.' I think that means both in terms of taking appropriate opportunities to teach one's children the right way, but at all times making sure they know that over all things you'll love them.

Lance B. Wickman

opportunity mean children

There's really no question that there is an anguish associated with the inability to marry in this life. We feel for someone that has that anguish. I feel for somebody that has that anguish. But it's not limited to someone who has same-gender attraction.

Lance B. Wickman

gender inability this-life

If I can keep myself worthy here, if I can be true to gospel commandments, if I can keep covenants that I have made, the blessings of exaltation and eternal life that Heavenly Father holds out to all of His children apply to me. Every blessing - including eternal marriage - is and will be mine in due course.

Lance B. Wickman

blessing father children

Merely having inclinations does not disqualify one for any aspect of Church participation or membership, except possibly marriage. But even that, in the fullness of life as we understand it through the doctrines of the restored gospel, eventually can become possible.

Lance B. Wickman

fullness-of-life church doe

In this life, such things as service in the Church, including missionary service, all of this is available to anyone who is true to covenants and commandments.

Lance B. Wickman

covenant church missionary

Why somebody has a same-gender attraction... who can say? But what matters is the fact that we know we can control how we behave, and it is behavior which is important.

Lance B. Wickman

what-matters important facts

What matters most is recognition that 'I have my own will. I have my own agency. I have the power within myself to control what I do.'

Lance B. Wickman

recognition agency what-matters

Same-gender attraction did not exist in the pre-earth life and neither will it exist in the next life. It is a circumstance that for whatever reason or reasons seems to apply right now in mortality, in this nano-second of our eternal existence.

Lance B. Wickman

earth-life next reason

The good news for somebody who is struggling with same-gender attraction is this: It is that 'I'm not stuck with it forever.' It's just now. Admittedly, for each one of us, it's hard to look beyond the 'now' sometimes. But nonetheless, if you see mortality as now, it's only during this season.

Lance B. Wickman

struggle forever looks

[Genderless marriage] is contrary to God's law, to revealed Word. Scripture, ancient and modern, could not be clearer on the definition that the Lord and His agents have given to marriage down through the dispensations.

Lance B. Wickman

scripture definitions law

Grief is the natural by-product of love. One cannot selflessly love another person and not grieve at his suffering or eventual death. The only way to avoid the grief would be to not experience the love; and it is love that gives life its richness and meaning.