We Believe in Being Positive

I knew the importance of being positive, but was pleasantly surprised to find it documented in the official magazine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.

Orson F. Whitney, Conference Report, April 1917
as quoted here.

How we respond in any situation has to make things better, not worse.

Jeffery R. Holland, "Israel, Israel, God is Calling"
January 2012 CES Devotional

Remember, our Savior, Jesus Christ, always builds us up and never tears us down.

Dallin H, Oaks, "Powerful Ideas," October 1995 Conference

Of course, this does not mean that God does not call us to pass through some heart wrenching trials to chasten and purify us. If God does tear us down, it is with the careful design to build us back up again, much greater than before. There is a balancing truth:

I heard the Prophet Joseph say, in speaking to the Twelve on one occasion: ‘You will have all kinds of trials to pass through. And it is quite as necessary for you to be tried as it was for Abraham and other men of God, and (said he) God will feel after you, and He will take hold of you and wrench your very heart strings, and if you cannot stand it you will not be fit for an inheritance in the Celestial Kingdom of God.’

John Taylor, quoted of Chapter 19 of
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith

and,

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity