Short, Basic Messages

As I watched President Monson's Sunday Morning Session talk, The Perfect Path to Happiness, this evening, I was struck by how similar it was to his Priesthood Session talk, Principles and Promises. Both are, according to Youtube, about four minutes and forty seconds long. Both talks were about one of the basic, fundamental teachings of the church. And yet, both of those teachings are unique to our church. In just over nine minutes, spread over two days, President Monson shared stories and testimonies about two of the principle teachings that make our church unique.

I'm thankful for President Monson's example here. It proves that a message doesn't have to be long to be worthy of sharing. It illustrates the importance of frequently reviewing the basics. And it highlights the truth that no Gospel topic is too humble for the President of the church to address. All Gospel topics are worth learning and teaching, even if that means the prophet himself giving the kind of talk a bishop might ask a youth speaker to give -- A five minute message on a subject with which much of the audience is already familiar.

As a person who posts spiritual(ish) messages on my blog every day, I appreciate that President Monson's example proves that a message doesn't have to be drawn out or complicated. A few paragraphs and a simple testimony would suffice.

I feel that I have come to over-complicate this blogging habit of mine. When I have a complex, unique, and interesting insight that takes several paragraphs and a few analogies to accurately describe, I can share that, but when I don't have anything earth-shattering to share, perhaps it'd be enough for me to write a paragraph about how nice it was that I got to see the sun today. Simple appreciation of nature's beauty and the wonders of the universe could make a decent blog post, even if the message only ended up being a few sentences long.

I worry too much. My blog posts don't all need to be long and insightful. Some of them can be just testimonies or, like President Monson's most recent talks, quick reviews of some basic, essential Gospel principles. I hope that you're okay with short blog posts every once in a while, and I hope that this means that I don't always have to stay up until midnight writing them.