Umar Malik

“There may be times when we must make a courageous decision to hope even when everything around us contradicts this hope. Like Father Abraham, we will 'against hope believe in hope' (Romans 4:18). Or, as one writer expressed, 'in the depth of winter, we find within us an invincible summer.”
― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“It was our beloved Savior’s final night in mortality, the evening before He would offer Himself a ransom for all humankind. As He broke bread with His disciples, He said something that must have filled their hearts with great alarm and deep sadness. “One of you shall betray me,” He told them.
The disciples didn’t question the truth of what He said. Nor did they look around, point to someone else, and ask, “Is it him?”
Instead, “they were exceeding sorrowful, and began every one of them to say unto him, Lord, is it I?” (Matthew 26:21–22; emphasis added).
I wonder what each of us would do if we were in the room when the Savior made that statement. Would we look at those around us and say in our hearts, “He’s probably talking about Brother so-and-so. I’ve always wondered about him,” or “I’m glad Sister so-and-so is here. She really needs to hear this message”? Or would we, like those disciples of old, look inward and ask that penetrating question: “Is it I?” In these simple words, Lord, is it I? lies the beginning of wisdom and the pathway to personal conversion and lasting change.”
― Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“A man might spend a lifetime reading spiritual books and studying the writings of the great mystics. He might feel that he had penetrated the secrets of the heavens and the earth, but unless this knowledge was incorporated into his very nature and transformed him, it was sterile. I began to suspect that a simple man of faith, praying to God with little understanding but with a full heart, might be worth more than the most learned student of the spiritual sciences.”
― Charles Le Gai Eaton, Islam and the Destiny of Man

“The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory