Our little pebble of poor performance helps to start, or to sustain, an avalanche.

Trying to observe the slow shift from self-centeredness to empathy is like trying to watch grass grow.

A new calling can beckon us away from comfortable routine and from competencies already acquired.

Our goals should stretch us bit by bit. So often when we think we have encountered a ceiling, it is really a psychological or experiential barrier that we have built ourselves. We built it and we can remove it.

Mercy can purge the soul of sin, making room for a fresh start. Truth is vital in order that we have an unvarying standard by which to determine what we are to be and to do and what we are to rid ourselves of. All the cardinal virtues, therefore, carry their own intrinsic as well as outward reward. A merciful man does do good to his own soul.

So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the 'sacrifice unto the Lord... of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,' (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving 'away all [our] sins' in order to 'know God' (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.

We are often not only to slow to get on our knees, but to quick to rise from them.