LitArk » Books » Religion

James L. Ferrell - Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness

Here you can read online James L. Ferrell - Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness full text of the book (entire story) in english for free. Download pdf and epub, get meaning, cover and reviews about this ebook. year: 2012, publisher: Deseret Book, genre: Religion. Description of the work, (preface) as well as reviews are available. Best literature library LitArk.com created for fans of good reading and offers a wide selection of genres:

Romance novel Science fiction Adventure Detective Science History Home and family Prose Art Politics Computer Non-fiction Religion Business Children Humor

Choose a favorite category and find really read worthwhile books. Enjoy immersion in the world of imagination, feel the emotions of the characters or learn something new for yourself, make an fascinating discovery.

Book:
Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness
Author:
James L Ferrell
Publisher:
Deseret Book
Genre:
Books / Religion
Year:
2012
Rating:
5 / 5
Favourites:
Add to favourites
Your mark:
- 100
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5

Description
Author's other books
Similar books

Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness: summary, description and annotation

We offer to read an annotation, description, summary or preface (depends on what the author of the book "Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness" wrote himself). If you haven't found the necessary information about the book — write in the comments, we will try to find it.

As incredible as it may sound, much of the sadness and frustration we feel in mortality is actually created by our well-meaning efforts to find happiness. Relief from this predicament can be found through a divine gospel paradox that rescues us from failed roads and puts us on the surprising path to happiness.

Through engaging stories and fresh, invigorating gospel insights, James Ferrell has written a book that challenges our unquestioned and perhaps mistaken assumptions about many of lifes fundamental concerns. For example, what if happiness depends less on forgiving ourselves than on giving up that quest? What if repentance is even sweeter than forgiveness? What if neither happiness nor heaven can be reached by climbing?

Falling to Heaven is an account of a gospel thats specifically designed to change our minds and transform our hearts. It is an account of the truths of Christ that really do set us free.

About the Author

James L. Ferrell was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. He is a graduate of Brigham Young University and Yale Law School and is a founding partner of the Arbinger Institute. He has authored several bestselling books, including The Peacegiver, The Holy Secret, and The Hidden Christ. He currently serves in a stake presidency. Jim and his wife, Jackie, are the parents of five children.

James L. Ferrell: author's other books

Who wrote Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness? Find out the surname, the name of the author of the book and a list of all author's works by series.

Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

2012 James L Ferrell All rights reserved No part of this book may be - photo 1

2012 James L. Ferrell.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, P.O. Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 30178. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark of Deseret Book Company.

Visit us at DeseretBook.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

(CIP on file)

ISBN 978-1-60908-900-9

Printed in the United States of America

Publishers Printing, Salt Lake City, UT

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all those that be bowed down.
Psalm 145:14

Table of Contents

A Surprising Truth

The Gift of Guilt

Signs of Up-ness

The Confessional Life

Introduction

In a church meeting I once attended, a visiting speaker opened his remarks with the following question: Do you think Jesus loved himself? Of course he did! he insisted enthusiastically, responding to his own question. How else could he love others so much if he didnt first love himself?

Over the years since, I have been on the lookout for scriptural support for this idea. In all that time, I have yet to find a single verse of scripture that speaks of Jesus self-love. Countless scriptures tell us that he loves his Father and loves us. Indeed, those two themes are apparently among the most important in all the scripture. But that he loves himself? Not even a whisper. It seems that the topic didnt interest him.

Although I have never heard another person in the Church even mention the issue of Jesus self-love, I hear a lot of talk about whether we love ourselves whether we feel good about ourselves, for example, or whether we can forgive ourselves, or accept ourselves. I have wondered whether it is wise and helpful for those who are commanded to follow Jesus in all things to expend our energies trying to secure a self-regard and self-worth that the Lord appears never to have valued. The scripture sometimes cited in favor of such effortsthe commandment to love our neighbors as ourselveshas increasingly become inverted in our modern age to mean that we must love ourselves so that we can love our neighbors. But is this really what Jesus was teaching?

My understanding of this commandment is that we are to feel just as happy for anothers good fortune as we would for our own. It is a description of the kind of love that bound Jonathan to David, even though David would supplant Jonathan, King Sauls heir, from the throne. Whereas envious Saul spent the last decade of his life trying to kill the one who would take the scepter from his house, humble Jonathan symbolically transferred his own kingly raiment to Davidloving him, the scriptures say, as his own soul. This, I believe, is the kind of love Jesus was talking about, which is worlds apart from the idea of an indulgent love of self.

Notwithstanding this, when we feel down, the world urges us to try to feel upto stop being too hard on ourselves, to dwell upon our strengths, and to forgive and love ourselves. By contrast, the scriptures specifically condemn those who become lovers of their own selves.

Whether we are feeling up or feeling down, the scriptures suggest that the path of rescue lies in the one direction our natural-man tendencies keep us from looking. As absurd as it may sound, happiness apparently lies not in our trying to feel better about ourselves but rather through our allowing the Lord to help us see truths that at first might make us feel worse. In these lowest momentsthe moments when we give up resisting what we havent wanted to seewe are finally immersed in the joy we have always sought but have never found, a joy that comes not because we have lifted our hearts but because we have finally allowed them to break.

Perhaps, like me, you have sometimes felt stuckunfulfilled, for example, or complacent, or unhappy, and unable to find a way out of your struggle. Or perhaps you have felt flawed, or forgotten, or unfairly burdened. Maybe you grieve as you find your faith at times waning, or your desire to do good diminishing. Maybe you have concluded that even God cant save you.

Whatever our struggles, a great truth at the heart of the gospel reveals a most surprising path to happiness. The path is always right before us, but it begins in the one place our burdened or complacent hearts are keeping us from looking. Happiness, like heaven, may seem above us, but it turns out that we dont obtain either of them by climbing.

Notes

1. See Matthew 22:39.

2. See 1 Samuel 18:14.

3. Mosiah 18:21. See also 1 Samuel 18:1.

4. Hebrews 13:3.

5. 2 Timothy 3:2.

6. See Luke 17:33.

7. D&C 19:21. See also D&C 6:9; 11:9.

8. Ether 12:27.

9. See Mosiah 3:19.

Part One

A Surprising Truth

Making Sense of Happiness

A man Ill call Jeff Watson stared blankly at his computer screen. The curtains to his home office were drawn tightly shut, the darkened, hemmed-in room mirroring his soul. His wife of eighteen years had taken the children to her parents home for the weekend. He was alone. Terribly and frighteningly alone.

They had finally had the talk he had long run fromthe exchange in which divorce was not only raised as a possibility but the preliminary planning had begun. Who would have the kids? She wanted them. So did he. In the cool arithmetic of those trying to bridle firestorms of emotion, they agreed that they would let the kids choose, off-loading that heart-aching choice to the only people in the family who didnt deserve to have to make it. Jeff wanted desperately to believe that it was a scene from another persons life. But it wasnt. This was his life, and everything he cared about was collapsing all around him.

Jeff confided in me after a sleepless, tear-filled night. His soul struggled so desperately for sustaining breath that he could barely squeeze in words between his heavings. At first, I thought he was gravely ill. No, Jim, he choked, its not that. Its And then my friend started bawling. I had never heard pain like I heard in his anguished, sobbing cries. After my multiple attempts to try to get him to tell me what was wrong, he finally was able to say, Tammys left me, Jim. Its over. Everythingeverythings over. And then the wave of sorrow overcame him again.

I sat in stunned silence, my mind racing to understand what I had just heard. The Jeff and Tammy Watsons of this world dont get divorced. Those of us who were privileged to know them had hope in our own marriages partly because of what we saw in theirs. What I was hearing was impossible.

But sometimes the impossible is whats most true, even when its heartbreaking. I listened as Jeff talked about years spent in secret struggle. What a lonely and difficult thing to suffer in such an outwardly happy way! He spoke of the burden he had long carried of living a hypocritical life, of not loving as he had long preached that we should love, of growing in bitterness even as he professed to forgive. He spoke of the foreboding future he now saw: rumors, innuendo, a release from his Church calling, a possible end to his career. He could barely speak about his children and what this might do to them. Where did I go wrong? he pleaded, more to the universe than to me in particular. What have I done to deserve this?

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness»

Look at similar books to Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Mickey Robinson

Falling Into Heaven: A Skydivers Gripping Account of Heaven, Healings and Miracles

Joseph Murphy

Attract Happiness: Take Charge of Your LIfe

David Leonhardt

9 Habits of Happiness

James D. Baird

Happiness Genes: Unlock the Positive Potential Hidden in Your DNA

Acharya Prashant

Ananda: Happiness Without Reason

F. J. Boudreaux

The Happiness of Heaven: And How to Attain the Joys That Await You There

Rev. Fr. J. Boudreau

The Happiness of Heaven: The Joys and Rewards of Eternal Glory

Joan D Chittister

Happiness

Richard G. Scott [Scott

Finding Peace, Happiness, and Joy

James L. Ferrell

The Peacegiver: How Christ Offers to Heal Our Hearts and Homes

James L. Ferrell

Falling to Heaven: Surprising Path to Happiness

Robert Holden Ph.D.

Be Happy!: Release the Power of Happiness in YOU

Reviews about «Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness»

Discussion, reviews of the book Falling to Heaven: The Surprising Path to Happiness and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.