Praying Cream and Living Skimmed Milk

I love this quote by Henry Ward Beecher:

"It is not well for a man to pray cream and live skim milk"

I've done that before... gone before God with fantastic intentions and assurances, only to not live up to what I promised. Thank goodness He's patient! I had read this following quote last week from Elder Uchtdorf, and it ties in well with the sentiment:

“Those who are unafraid to roll up their sleeves and lose themselves in the pursuit of worthwhile goals are a blessing to their families, communities, nations and to the Church.

The Lord doesn’t expect us to work harder than we are able. He doesn’t (nor should we) compare our efforts to those of others. Our Heavenly Father asks only that we do the best we can—that we work according to our full capacity, however great or small that may be.

When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer—no matter how eloquent the oration. President Thomas S. Monson put it this way: “It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we’ll make the effort. . . . It’s in the doing, not just the thinking, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled".

(Elder Uchtdorf, "Two Principles For Any Economy, Ensign, Nov 2009)