“Those who have known the sweetness of service in the kingdom and who have looked at life through the lens of the gospel will ever be restless with a divine discontent until their families do partake of that precious fruit and thereby witness for themselves.
Just as certain people must be prepared to do God’s work, so, too, families are prepared beforehand to host special individuals.
Family life is a constant challenge, not a periodic performance we can render on a stage and then run for the privacy of a dressing room to be alone with ourselves.
Countless families are living in “quiet desperation,” held together with the Scotch Tape of sentiment or existing merely on the ice flow of indifference. The good family is the salt of society; if it loses its flavor, what will give savor to a tasteless society—“wherewith shall it be salted”? (See Matthew 5:13.)
Looking beyond the family to other institutions, programs, or activities—which may be good and helpful in their spheres—can be disastrous. The family is still the most efficient means for producing human happiness and human goodness, as well as preparing us for the world of immortality that is to follow.
The health of the family is a better barometer of things to come in our political and economic world than we care to admit. The malcontents and assassins and militants who will do so much to harm society tomorrow are already aflame in the overheated family furnaces of today. It could be said of our increasing social inter-dependency that never have so few been able to hurt so many so much.
Ironically, some individuals who cannot handle the challenge of family life so often veer off in dramatic causes to save mankind—like a dropout from Little League demanding a place in the batting order in baseball’s World Series! (p.31)
The flame of family can warm us and at the same time be a perpetual pilot light to rekindle us.(p.86)
~Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book p.119-20,31,86 Bookcraft 1997
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
To members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the following would be of interest from Elder Maxwell: “The prophets teach all of the gospel, but choose to emphasize those truths that are most relevant and most needed in the times in which we live. In an age, for instance, when the institution of the family was quite secure, prophets apparently felt less need to speak about that issue. Family life was a given fact. But in our time, it has been necessary for prophets (particularly in the last part of this last dispensation) to remind all of society, as well as the Saints, about the tremendous importance of the home. (from Really Are, p. 66)
