Talks
Quotes
Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life – Berthold Auerbach
Your Talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. – Leo Buscaglia
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. – Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays (Chatto & Windus)
Music is the shorthand of emotion.
Where words fail, music speaks.
If we think of spiritual gifts and talents in the same way as the gifts we get on our birthdays or Christmas we might get the wrong idea about spiritual gifts. You see, there is a very big difference. Spiritual gifts are not for us to keep and play with. They are for us to share with others. God blesses us with spiritual gifts and talents for the purpose of sharing them with others so that they can be blessed. He gave us gifts to help build the kingdom of God. (Bible Time For Kids)
Eyes are the window to the soul. Ears are the pathway to the heart. Music touches us in places that nothing else can reach.
“Inspirational music is an essential part of our church meetings. The hymns invite the Spirit of the Lord, create a feeling of reverence, unify us as members, and provide a way for us to offer praises to the Lord. Some of the greatest sermons are preached by the singing of hymns. Hymns move us to repentance and good works, build testimony and faith, comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end.” (Preface to the hymnbook by the First Presidency)
Those who choose, conduct, present, and accompany the music may influence the spirit of reverence in our meetings more than a speaker does.” (President Boyd. K. Packer, Ensign, Nov. 1991, 22)
“We get nearer to the Lord through music than perhaps through any other thing except prayer.” President Heber J. Grant, Improvement Era, Sept. 1940, 522
Ours is a hymnbook for the home as well as for the meetinghouse. We hope the hymnbook will take a prominent place among the scriptures and other religious books in our homes. The hymns can bring families a spirit of beauty and peace and can inspire love and unity among family members. Teach your children to love the hymns. Sing them on the Sabbath, in home evening, during scripture study, at prayer time. Sing as you work, as you play, and as you travel together. Sing hymns as lullabies to build faith and testimony in your young ones. (First Presidency Preface to Hymn Book)
Each person’s unique gifts and talents are just that, they are unique and varied. They are not equal or the same for each person, though they may appear to be somewhat similar.
In my 30 years experience of working with college students, it seems that too many men and women develop a type of narcissistic, spiritual navel-gazing, that is, they try to compare oneself against someone else, as if being superior or inferior to another. Usually, they start by looking to those on their proverbial left, thus they feel inadequate, or less than by comparison. Yet, when they look toward their proverbial right they feel so superior, or a sense of being better than that person.
The problem is, as I see it, that comparisons can only be made with what is similar, (apples to apples). You cannot compare that which unique. Each man’s or woman’s gifts and talents are not meant to be in competition with one another, but they are to be complementary, those abilities needed to complete the whole….that is to build up he Body of Christ. (Your Giftedness, Brian Cavanaugh, TOR, September 2011)
Success is not measured by what you do compared to what others do. It is measured by what you do with the ability God gave you – Zig Ziglar
Where much is required, much is given.
The responsibility for producing, selecting and performing music for the church requires discrimination, taste, knowledge and the proper spirit; in short, it requires the best efforts that our best musicians can give inasmuch as we are using gifts which the Lord has given us for the purpose of building up his kingdom…we are in a position as musicians, to touch the souls of those who listen. – Spencer W. Kimball
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