Digests

Contents

• Priorities
• Virtues
• Prayer
• Parables

Priorities

¹ A­void com­pul­sion un­less im­me­di­ate­ly nec­es­sary to save life, lib­er­ty, or prop­er­ty. ² Choose what you will have at the ex­pense of what you wonʼt. ³ Give no im­por­tance to that which has none. ⁴ Tend to your own af­fairs.

⁵ Make promises spar­ing­ly. ⁶ Keep your word. ⁷ Make a­mends. ⁸ Be grate­ful.

⁹ Take care of your­self. ¹⁰ Be spar­ing and cau­tious with behaviors that might be ad­dic­tive.

¹¹ Re­spect others. ¹² Speak kind­ly and qui­et­ly. ¹³ Main­tain a few strong re­la­tion­ships. ¹⁴ Main­tain sta­ble, long-term re­la­tion­ships with your spouses. ¹⁵ Ob­tain con­sent from your spouses for all in­ti­mate re­la­tion­ships. ¹⁶ Raise chil­dren with your spouses.

¹⁷ Spend some time each day qui­et and a­lone. ¹⁸ Pray dai­ly. ¹⁹ Study the Digests and Messages dai­ly, bal­anc­ing lit­er­al and fig­ur­a­tive in­ter­pre­ta­tion.

²⁰ A­void con­ten­tion. ²¹ For­give wrongs, re­al and perceived. ²² Main­tain po­lit­i­cal neu­tral­i­ty.

²³ Ac­quire use­ful knowl­edge, then act on it. ²⁴ En­gage skill­ful­ly in an oc­cu­pa­tion, trade, or craft. ²⁵ Make an hon­est prof­it. ²⁶ In­cur debts rare­ly and spar­ing­ly, and pay them back quick­ly. ²⁷ Ten per­cent of your an­nu­al ex­pen­di­tures should be donations. ²⁸ Keep a mod­est re­serve of use­ful as­sets.

²⁹ Smile. ³⁰ Serve anon­y­mous­ly, with­out re­mu­ner­a­tion.

³¹ Main­tain your body in hygiene, bal­ance, strength, flex­i­bil­i­ty, and speed. ³² De­vote one day in sev­en to re­ju­ve­na­tion and spir­it­u­al growth. ³³ Im­prove your sur­round­ings.

Virtues

¹ Chal­lenge, com­fort. ² Com­pan­ion­ship, sol­i­tude. ³ Con­tent­ment, am­bi­tion. ⁴ De­tach­ment, at­tach­ment. ⁵ Flex­i­ble, te­na­cious. ⁶ Gen­er­ous, fru­gal. ⁷ Grad­u­al, swift. ⁸ Ho­lis­tic, at­om­is­tic. ⁹ Hum­ble, con­fi­dent. ¹⁰ In­de­pend­ence, con­form­i­ty. ¹¹ In­tel­lect, e­mo­tion. ¹² Mer­cy, jus­tice. ¹³ O­pen, guard­ed. ¹⁴ Pre­pare, im­pro­vise. ¹⁵ Si­lence, com­mu­ni­ca­tion. ¹⁶ Sim­ple, abun­dant. ¹⁷ So­lem­ni­ty, hu­mor. ¹⁸ Sta­ble, dy­nam­ic. ¹⁹ Tact­ful, hon­est. ²⁰ Tra­di­tion, in­no­va­tion. ²¹ Tran­quil­i­ty, ex­cite­ment. ²² Work, re­pose.

Prayer

^1:1 Of­fer in­for­mal pray­er at least three times dur­ing your wak­ing hours.

^1:2 Po­si­tion your­self how­ev­er is mean­ing­ful, com­fort­a­ble, and ap­pro­pri­ate to your cir­cum­stances. ³ Pray si­lent­ly or a­loud. ⁴ Be­gin by say­ing, “God in heav­en.” ⁵ In your own words, ex­press grat­i­tude, ac­knowl­edge your faults, and re­quest guid­ance and as­sis­tance. ⁶ Pause to lis­ten.

^1:7 Con­clude by say­ing, “A­men.”

^2:1 Of­fer for­mal pray­er once or twice dur­ing your wak­ing hours, ² with at least one performed out­side.

^2:3 When praying out­side, con­sid­er turn­ing your back to­wards the ap­prox­i­mate lo­ca­tion of the sun. ⁴ Pray a­loud if pos­si­ble. ⁵ Make your best ef­fort to per­form each pos­ture of pray­er in turn:

^2:6 Grat­i­tude: Stand, face up­ward, eyes closed, hands clasped, un­til tran­quil. ⁷ Re­cite, “God in heav­en, I thank you for life, air to breathe, qui­et places, and the abil­i­ty to choose; ⁸ for challenges, work, e­mo­tion, and the gift of rea­son.” ⁹ In your own words, ex­press heart­felt grat­i­tude to God.

^2:10 Con­fes­sion: Bow, face down­ward, eyes closed, hands on knees. ¹¹ Re­cite, “God in heav­en, I strive to keep the Priorities, to bal­ance the Vir­tues, and to learn from my failures when I donʼt. ¹² I want to be more faith­ful. ¹³ I fall short in these ways.” ¹⁴ In your own words, con­fess to God your failures, weak­ness­es, and ways you need to im­prove.

^2:15 Pe­ti­tion: Squat, face for­ward, eyes closed, arms out­stretched, hands cupped to form a bowl. ¹⁶ Re­cite, “God in heav­en, you have giv­en me a beau­ti­ful world to live in, messengers to teach me, and guid­ance when I ask. ¹⁷ Hear my pray­er.” ¹⁸ In your own words, re­quest Godʼs guid­ance.

^2:19 Re­cep­tion: Stand, face down­ward, eyes closed, hands clasped. ²⁰ Re­cite, “God in heav­en, you let the sun rise on good and evil peo­ple a­like. ²¹ You send guid­ance through a gen­tle thought, a soft feel­ing, or a qui­et voice. ²² Iʼm listening.” Lis­ten for Godʼs guid­ance.

^2:23 Ac­tion: Bow, face down­ward, eyes closed, hands on knees. ²⁴ Re­cite, “God in heav­en, the great­est gift brings no prof­it when left un­used. ²⁵ I thank you for giv­ing me guid­ance. ²⁶ I plan to act.” ²⁷ In your own words, tell God how you will act on the guid­ance you have re­ceived.

^2:28 Con­clude by say­ing, “A­men.”

Parables

^1:1 A young child asks his moth­er, “How is a ba­by made?” ² Know­ing the childʼs ru­di­men­ta­ry un­der­stand­ing, she responds, ³ “The fa­ther places a seed in the motherʼs bel­ly, and it grows in­to a ba­by.”

^2:1 A king had two vaults filled with treas­ure, each protected by its own lock. ² The king said that who­ev­er opened a vault could have the treas­ure in­side. ³ Two men sought the treas­ure.

^2:4 The first man turned the dials of the lock. ⁵ He listened care­ful­ly as the mech­a­nism moved in­side. ⁶ He no­ticed patterns of sound and vi­bra­tion with­in the dials. ⁷ Af­ter many days of per­sis­tence and study, he discovered the com­bi­na­tion and unlocked the vault.

^2:8 The second man offered to be the kingʼs serv­ant. ⁹ He listened care­ful­ly to the kingʼs wishes, and ex­e­cut­ed them faith­ful­ly. ¹⁰ He no­ticed patterns a­mong the kingʼs requests and an­tic­i­pat­ed his wishes. ¹¹ Af­ter many days of per­sis­tence and ser­vice, the second man asked the king for the com­bi­na­tion and re­ceived it.

^2:13 Both men re­ceived treas­ure.

^3:1 There were two lakes. ² The first lake said to him­self, “I will re­tain eve­ry drop of wa­ter that flows in­to me so that I can be great.” ³ His waters be­came salty and pu­trid. ⁴ His fish died and the plants a­long his shore wilted. ⁵ An­i­mals and travelers avoided him.

^3:6 The second lake said to him­self, “I want to pros­per all life on the moun­tain be­low me. I will re­tain a mod­est pool for my­self then al­low each drop to pass down the riv­er to those who might use it.” ⁷ His waters be­came clean and sweet. ⁸ His fish grew large and the plants a­long his shore prospered. ⁹ An­i­mals and travelers came from afar to en­joy his splen­dor.

^4:1 Rain, fresh­ly fall­en from a cloud, is clean and good to drink. ² As it flows down mountains and across plains, it be­comes soiled and bit­ter. ³ The sun must ex­tract pure wa­ter from the sea again, leav­ing impurities be­hind, to pro­duce fresh rain once more.

^5:1 A horse, a dol­phin, and an ea­gle each needs dif­fer­ent nour­ish­ment, ² and yet each grows to full stat­ure and maj­es­ty.

^6:1 A child asks his moth­er, “Please get me a cup from the top shelf.” ² The moth­er reaches the cup for him. ³ A grown man asks his moth­er, “Please get me a cup from the top shelf.” ⁴ She responds, “You can reach it your­self.”

^7:1 A man mixed one meas­ure of sug­ar and the juice from one lem­on in­to 2,000 meas­ures of wa­ter, ² then served it to his guests as lem­on­ade.

^8:1 A man brought eggs home from the mar­ket. ² Up­on ar­riv­ing, he an­nounced, “I purchased one doz­en eggs.” ³ His wife said, “No you did­nʼt. You bought twelve eggs.” ⁴ A son said, “Youʼre both wrong. There are clear­ly three rows of four eggs each.” ⁵ A daugh­ter dis­a­greed, “Not at all. There are four columns of three eggs each.”

^9:1 A man de­cid­ed to climb a moun­tain. ² He fixed his gaze per­ma­nent­ly on the sum­mit and be­gan hik­ing. ³ He tripped over un­seen rocks at his feet, ⁴ and was un­a­ble to reach the moun­tain top.

^9:5 An­oth­er man de­cid­ed to climb the same moun­tain. ⁶ He gazed per­ma­nent­ly at his feet, to a­void the errors of the first man, and be­gan hik­ing. ⁷ With­out trip­ping once, he wandered off in­to a val­ley, ⁸ and was un­a­ble to reach the moun­tain top.

^10:1 A man no­ticed jig­saw puz­zle pieces rest­ing on a ta­ble. ² He wanted to as­sem­ble the puz­zle but pieces were mis­sing, and he did­nʼt know how the puz­zle should look when fin­ished.

^10:3 From time to time he lo­cat­ed mis­sing pieces, but there were still too few to guess how the puz­zle should look. ⁴ One day he found a sketch of the fin­ished puz­zle. ⁵ He as­sem­bled the pieces he had, on­ly to re­al­ize that he was still mis­sing some. ⁶ He con­tin­ued search­ing for mis­sing pieces, plac­ing them where they be­longed. ⁷ In time, he found all the pieces, and as­sem­bled the puz­zle in­to its beau­ti­ful, com­plete form.