Stubborn selfishness leads otherwise good people to fight over herds, patches of sand, and strippings of milk. All this results from what the Lord calls coveting "the drop," while neglecting the "more weighty matters." (D&C 117:8) Myopic selfishness magnifies a mess of pottage and makes thirty pieces of silver look like a treasure trove. In our intense acquisitiveness, we forget Him who once said, "What is property unto me?"

Without making a fetish of goal setting, and without letting "lists" of tasks we desire to do dominate us, some recording of goals is wise not only for the self-reminder these constitute, but also for the satisfaction of crossing things off.

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

Even the good can become careless without the Lord's being there to chasten.

We cannot lead or draw others to Christ unless we stand closer to Him than they do.

Patient endurance permits us to cling to our faith in the Lord and our faith in His timing when we are being tossed about by the surf of circumstance. Even when a seeming undertow grasps us, somehow, in the tumbling, we are being carried forward, though battered and bruised.

I assume, gladly, that in the allocation to America of remarkable leaders like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln, the Lord was just as careful. After all, if you've got only one Abraham Lincoln, you'd better put him in that point in history when he's most needed-much as some of us might like to have him now.