Heed and Diligence
“We consider that god has created man with a mind capable of instruction, and a faculty which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light communicated from Heaven to the intellect.”1 One of the great and succinct declarations about coming to know God is found in Alma 9:3. Men and women come to God by giving “heed and diligence” to what God asks of them. “I cannot do that for you, nor can you do it for me. It is the sojourn of every individual. The mysteries of God are His hidden but simple truths. They set a man’s bones on fire. To pay heed to God requires that we not harden our hearts. When we have hard hearts we know less. Even what we once knew can be lost.”2
1 TPJS, 51; DHC, 2:8; from “The Elders of the Church in Kirtland, to Their Brethren Abroad,” Jan. 22, 1834, published in The Evening and Morning Star, Feb. 1834, 135; WJS, 346; WWJ, 386.
2 “The Restoration’s Shattered Promises and Great Hope,” address given at Sunstone Symposium, Sandy, UT, July 28, 2018, transcript, 7.