​There is a quiet danger that can come when life feels comfortable.
We begin to assume tomorrow will look much like today.
The grocery store will have food. The bank will open. The power will stay on. Our freedoms will remain secure. Our government will remain strong. Someone else will notice the problems. Someone else will speak up. Someone else will take care of things.
President Ezra Taft Benson warned against this kind of thinking:
“Too often we bask in our comfortable complacency and rationalize that the ravages of war, economic disaster, famine, and earthquake cannot happen here.”
He continued with an even stronger warning:
“Those who smugly think these calamities will not happen, that they somehow will be set aside because of the righteousness of the Saints, are deceived and will rue the day they harbored such a delusion.”
President Benson gave this warning in his October 1980 General Conference address, “Prepare for the Days of Tribulation.”
Those words may sound sobering, but their purpose is not to make us afraid. Their purpose is to wake us up.
God Warns Because He Loves Us
When the Lord warns His children, He is not trying to frighten them. He is trying to prepare them.
The Lord gave us this simple promise:
“If ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” —Doctrine and Covenants 38:30
Notice that the Lord does not say difficult things will never happen. Instead, He teaches us how to face them.
Prepare.
Preparation changes fear into faith because instead of sitting helplessly and wondering what might happen, we ask a better question: What would the Lord have me do today?

• Perhaps the answer is to repent.
• Perhaps it is to repair a relationship.
• Perhaps it is to build food storage, reduce debt, develop useful skills, or create an emergency plan.
• And perhaps it is to become a better-informed and more involved citizen.

These are not separate from discipleship. When done with wisdom and prayer, they can become part of it.
Spiritual Preparation Comes First
We can have a pantry filled with food and still be unprepared.
The greatest preparation begins in the heart.

• Are we praying?
• Are we studying the scriptures?
• Are we worshipping in the temple?
• Are we repenting quickly?
• Are we listening to the living prophets?
• Are we trying to hear the Holy Ghost?

If difficult days come, we will need more than supplies. We will need revelation. We will need courage. We will need peace. Most of all, we will need Jesus Christ.
Repentance, therefore, is one of the greatest forms of preparation.
The Savior taught:
“Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” —Matthew 24:42
Watching does not mean staring anxiously at everything going wrong in the world. 
It means living awake. It means keeping our lamps filled. It means staying close enough to Christ that when He whispers, we are ready to follow.

Every generation wants to move forward.
We celebrate innovation. We admire discovery. We strive to improve our communities, strengthen our economy, cure diseases, expand opportunity, and leave the world better than we found it.
Progress is part of the American story.


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The Constitution itself was an extraordinary step forward. It established a government built on the revolutionary idea that power belongs to the people, not to kings. It secured liberties that countless others around the world could only dream of. Those blessings have allowed America to flourish in remarkable ways. Yet there's a question we rarely stop to ask.
Can a nation keep moving forward if it no longer knows what direction it is heading?

"There is entrusted to each generation a sacred charge: to cherish the hallowed inheritance of our liberties and steward those liberties for all generations to come."
—Matthew S. Holland


Most of us think of freedom as something we were born with.
We celebrate it on national holidays. We quote the Constitution. We thank veterans for defending it. We enjoy the right to worship, speak, vote, work, and raise our families according to our convictions.
But here's a question worth asking:
What if liberty isn't really ours?
What if it never belonged to us in the first place?
Matthew S. Holland's words challenge us to see freedom differently. He describes liberty not as personal property, but as a sacred charge.
A charge is a responsibility.
It's something placed in your hands with the expectation that you will care for it before passing it on.

Imagine someone entrusted you with a priceless family heirloom. You wouldn't neglect it. You wouldn't abuse it. You certainly wouldn't sell it because it seemed inconvenient. You would protect it because you understood it wasn't truly yours.
Now ask yourself this.
Do we treat liberty with the same care?
Or have we begun to assume it will always be there, no matter what we do?
History offers a sobering lesson.
Every great civilization believed, at one point, that its freedoms would last forever.
Few did.
Freedom is remarkably difficult to achieve, but surprisingly easy to lose. Most often, it doesn't disappear overnight. It fades gradually, one compromise at a time. One generation becomes a little less vigilant than the one before it. Comfort replaces conviction. Convenience replaces principle. People begin trading responsibilities for security, truth for popularity, and character for personal gain.
By the time they realize what's been lost, recovering it is far more difficult than preserving it would have been.

"The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity."
—John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, June 28, 1813

More than three decades after the Declaration of Independence, John Adams reflected on what had made the American Revolution possible. His answer was surprisingly simple. The men who founded the United States did not all belong to the same church. They did not agree on every doctrine. They came from different colonies, different occupations, and often held sharply different political opinions. Yet Adams believed they shared something far more important. "They were united," he wrote, by "the general principles of Christianity."
That's an important distinction.

Adams wasn't arguing that every Founder believed exactly the same things about doctrine. He knew they didn't. What they shared was a common moral framework, one that shaped how they understood human nature, government, and freedom itself.
Those principles would sound familiar to Christians across nearly every tradition. They include the belief that every person has inherent worth because each is created by God. They teach that justice is better than tyranny, that truth matters, that integrity is worth protecting, that people are accountable for their actions, and that loving your neighbor isn't optional.
These weren't Baptist principles or Methodist principles or Catholic principles.
They were simply Christian principles.
Adams went on to say that these beliefs worked hand in hand with "the general principles of English and American liberty." In other words, the Founders believed freedom could only last if it rested on virtue.
Liberty without morality eventually turns into license. Rights without responsibility become impossible to sustain.
That theme appears throughout the Founding Era.
George Washington called religion and morality "indispensable supports" of political prosperity. James Madison understood that liberty could not survive if people refused to govern themselves. Benjamin Franklin regularly stressed the importance of virtue in public life.
These men disagreed on plenty of issues, but on this point they largely agreed: a free nation depends on the character of its citizens.
The Constitution could create a framework for liberty. It could not create virtue.
That responsibility belonged to the people.
Perhaps that's why Adams emphasized the "general principles" of Christianity instead of theological debates. Nations aren't held together by agreement on every secondary issue. They're strengthened when people share a commitment to enduring virtues such as honesty, humility, forgiveness, compassion, courage, self-control, and respect for the dignity of others.
Those virtues are woven throughout the teachings of Jesus.

• Love God.
• Love your neighbor.
• Treat others the way you want to be treated.
• Forgive those who wrong you.
• Care for the poor.
• Seek peace.
• Speak the truth.
• Keep your word.