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Thought Post

Something to think about from ...

Elder Glenn L. Pace, General Conference, Ensign, May 1986, 24 --

At the conclusion of a General Welfare Services Executive Committee meeting, where I felt I had waxed eloquent in discussing farms, trucks, silos, and canneries, President [Marion G.] Romney invited me into his office for an unscheduled meeting.

 

He asked one question: "Brother Pace, why is it we never discuss principles and doctrine anymore?"

 

I have not been the same since I heard that penetrating question. . . .

 

I fear we have learned too much over the years about programs at the expense of insufficient understanding of principles. If we had learned more principles, priesthood leaders all over the world would be solving local problems with local resources without waiting for something to come from Church headquarters. . . .

 

Programs blindly followed bring us to a discipline of doing good, but principles properly understood and practiced bring us to a disposition to do [and to be] good.

 

Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 304-305 , 265-266 --

There is a loneliness in all aspects of leadership. . . . The price of leadership is loneliness. The price of adherence to conscience is loneliness. The price of adherence to principle is loneliness. I think it is inescapable. . . .

There is loneliness -- but a man . . . has to live with his conscience. A man has to live with his principles. A man has to live with his convictions. A man has to live with his testimony. Unless he does so, he is miserable -- dreadfully miserable. And while there may be thorns, while there may be disappointment, while there may be trouble and travail, heartache and heartbreak, and desperate loneliness, there will be peace and comfort and strength.