All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience

Neal A. Maxwell has a gift for condensing immense ideas into single phrases, sentences, or short paragraphs that convey layers of meaning -- truly thoughts to ponder at length. I found this almost distracting to my attempts to read and return the book to its lender. It was difficult to read and then attempt to absorb, ponder, evaluate any given section without moving at a snail's pace.

I highly recommend this book; and I recommend reading a chapter or a section of a chapter at a time, giving ampl

Neal A. Maxwell has a gift for condensing immense ideas into single phrases, sentences, or short paragraphs that convey layers of meaning -- truly thoughts to ponder at length. I found this almost distracting to my attempts to read and return the book to its lender. It was difficult to read and then attempt to absorb, ponder, evaluate any given section without moving at a snail's pace.

I highly recommend this book; and I recommend reading a chapter or a section of a chapter at a time, giving ample opportunity to process and appreciate the multifaceted truths he is trying to limit to the confines of a page.

My favorite chapter is "Service, the Second Great Commandment." The following paragraphs helped me re-evaluate my idea of service -- first and foremost to my family, and then to everyone I work with, live near, and count as friends:

"Isn't it interesting that of the many ways in which the Lord might have phrased the object of the 'thou shalt' in the second great commandment, He chose the word neighbor – not mankind, not organizations, not people, and not society, but neighbor.

“It has only been in recent times, since people started saying they loved all mankind, that neighbors have suffered so much neglect.

“In keeping the second great commandment, the most significant and basic service we can regularly render unto others will emerge from our most basic roles – as brothers and sisters, as parents, as neighbors, as disciples.”

“As we strive to render significant, though often quiet, service, we should avoid life patterns in which the seeming pressures can make for superficial service and rushed relationships. What C. S. Lewis said of our reception-oriented social gatherings is often true: meeting people in such settings is like reading only the first page of one hundred different books – very unfulfilling! All of us should strive, therefore, to have some friendships that are deep and solid – so solid, for instance, that if they were interrupted, the unfinished conversation could be resumed months later almost in mid-sentence, just as if we had never been apart.”

“Jesus loved us enough to sacrifice and suffer for us, more than we can know – and perhaps, ever fully appreciate. There are so many times in life when we recoil from further service to others as they become too demanding. When we see what it is we are getting into, we so often want to get out. . . . Do we not see how it is that God has been longsuffering with us, and that to know Him we must be prepared over time to experience such things ourselves?

“Perfect love is perfectly patient. Loving patience with a disobedient child, long-term service in the sickness of a loved one who needs to be waited upon hand and foot – these are the things that will stretch our souls more than so many other forms of service . . . a gallantry that is Godlike in its regularity and selflessness.

“Yet keeping the second commandment – to love our neighbor as ourselves – requires, more than we know, the development of healthy self-regard. Unless, therefore, we ourselves are improving and growing, our neighbors and associates will tend to suffer at our hands – if only from acts of omission.”