Truth Tools

Brigham Young once gave this advice, “When you are tempted, buffeted, and step out of the way inadvertently; when you are overtaken in a fault, or commit an overt act unthinkingly; when you are full of evil passion, and wish to yield to it, then stop and let the spirit, which God has put into your tabernacles, take the lead. If you do that, I will promise that you will overcome all evil, and obtain eternal lives. But many, very many, let the spirit yield to the body, and are overcome and destroyed” (Discourses of Brigham Young, selected and arranged by John A. Widtsoe, p.70).

President Young is talking here about sin, but the beginning of all sin is negative thoughts. So if we can stop the negative thoughts and change them to positive thoughts, our actions will always be positive. The key is to find the strategies that work for us and then learn to use them. And that is what the Truth Tools are all about. They are Tools to use to stop the tempting thoughts, the vexing thoughts, the angry thoughts, the lustful thoughts, any negative thoughts that may pop into our heads, and allow the Spirit to guide us to what we should do.

I like to compare the Truth Tools to the stick shift of the car I learned to drive in. When in reverse I always needed to go into neutral before I could go forward. Negative emotions are like that. It is very difficult to go from anger to love, but if instead I just concentrate using the Truth Tools to get me from anger to neutral, the Spirit then helps me get to love.