In a time, place, and circumstances much different than those we find ourselves in today, a set of missionaries carried swords and other weapons into enemy territory. Several of them were brothers and had experienced a conversion to Jesus Christ and His gospel. Their father was the king of the Nephite people, but instead of seeking to rule a kingdom, these men sought to bring the enemies of their kingdom to a knowledge of the truth.
How often does a year go by and you feel like you’re much the same person as you were one year ago? That’s the case for me more often than not.
But as 2022 was ending and I needed to assess my professional development, I felt like I had grown more than I normally did. I worked on specific areas of growth with the help of my manager. I felt like a more capable employee.
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The mountainous region of a certain country had enjoyed optimal amounts of rain and snow for over 30 years. But hydrologists and meteorologists raised their concern that their predictive model of major weather trends, based on a historical cyclical pattern, had revealed trouble. It predicted that within five to ten more years, the rates of precipitation would ease significantly, and the area would fall into a drought.
by David Armstrong
It had been a grueling semester in Statistics 101, and Tommy dreaded the final exam. He had studied and worked hard through the entire course, and the struggle had been real. He knew, however, that his chances of passing the class were about as good as a snowball’s chance on a flat-top grill where he flipped burgers every day after school.
He skipped breakfast this morning because he was afraid he couldn’t keep it down. Nervousness about the final exam in Stats set him on edge. He walked from his dorm across campus to the testing center like a man climbing the thirteen steps to the gallows.
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Perhaps no greater proof exists of the adage, “Your perception is your reality,” than the fact that the colors you see depend on the photoreceptors in your eyes (see “How your perception creates your reality” by Dr. David Hamilton). Most people’s photoreceptors behave the same, but some people’s don’t (hence the variety of colorblindness), and animals’ differ from humans’. But for each individual, the colors we see are the colors things are.
Your perception is your reality, and your reality drives your choices and actions. The problems arise when perception becomes so far removed from reality, becomes so distorted, that the resulting choices become damaging.
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The Weekly Parable 