Inspiration and Learning to Listen

Ever since I was a small boy, I was enthralled by the idea of God.  I felt a wondrous and divine connection with my creator.  I just knew there was a Father in Heaven and I knew that I was his son.  I grew up feeling special.  I felt like I had big things to accomplish for the Lord and I just knew that he would be with me and that we would be performing great miracles in this world together.  I know that this may sound presumptuous, but it is how I felt when I was a boy.  I felt the pure wonder of the heavens around me and I had the energy to throw myself into the work and ministry of bringing souls unto Christ.  I did this and I shared the gospel with my friends. Had I been born into another church, I might have said that I felt called to the ministry.

Over the many years since then, I have learned much.  I have passed through many difficulties and my spirit has been tempered considerably.  I know something about how hard and unfair life can be.  I have had my heart broken and my spirit nearly broken as well.  I have had my childhood exuberant faith challenged to the core more than once.  I know now that I am nothing, and as to my strength, I am weak.  I know now that every breath I take is granted unto me.  I know now that life is fragile and that I could just as easily slip to the other side of the veil as continue to live on this side. But I suppose that there is enough of that young irrepressible boy left in me that I continue to try to testify of the truth.  I do it both verbally and in the written word.  That is why I continue to write this blog.  I can't help myself.  I must share what I feel.  That is what is inside of me.  My gift is to communicate and that is what I do despite my own weakness and imperfection.

I want to express that my testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ does not come to me based on any of the incredible and miraculous experiences so often spoken of in the scriptures via dreams, visions, or heavenly visitations.  I have desired to experience those kinds of sacred experiences all my life, but  to this date, I have never experienced any of those things things to any great degree.  When I hear about sacred experiences occurring  in our day with different people, I am always so interested to hear or read about them.  I am very open to the notion that Heavenly Father can and does communicate in that way with those whom he chooses for his own purposes.

I no longer feel that I have been passed over because I have not had these types of experiences.  I have grown in the understanding that the Lord knows best how to bring me along.  I think that in my particular case that the way to make me strong is to is to have me learn to discern and listen with my mind and my heart.  That is the way that my life has been patterned.  I have not had the privilege of having Lord part the veil for me although I have begged him to explain to me the reason why certain things have gone the way they have.  I have implored him at times to please open a panoramic vision of the plan for me to see everything in crystal clear detail. That has not been necessary for me nor would it have been the best thing for me.  Mine has been to walk the path of faith.  Faith is believing in those things we can't see, but are true.  If a man sees something in plain site, does he still need to have faith that it exists?

I now take it as a compliment that the Lord has worked with me in this way.  It shows that he trusts me and has a knowledge that he can communicate with me without shouting and without having to show me proof.  I have had countless promptings, intuitions, inklings of inspiration, words spoken to me in my mind, feelings of great peace and love, feelings of burning in my bosom.  I have had the spirit of prophecy with me as I have given blessings.  I have had a "stupor of thought" at times which has caused me to forget the things that I was considering that were not right which saved me heartache in the end.  I have experienced the gift of tongues while I preached the gospel in Spanish as a missionary in another country.  I have been given the gift to communicate spiritual things to both individuals and groups.  The truth is that I have had a multitude of spiritual communication provided to me that continues to this day.

I do not think I am alone in this in any way.  I know that all of us have some or many of these gifts along with many others.  The main thing, in my estimation, is to learn how to tune into spiritual communication from the Lord.  I believe that He is trying to communicate with us everyday but because of our preoccupations we miss many of his messages.  Sometimes we are so busy, we don't take the time to listen.  Other times we indulge ourselves in grief past the time of grieving, or we are angry past the time of justified anger and thus we put chains on ourselves and we don't receive the communication and healing that our Father is trying to provide.

My suggestion is this.  Learn to be still.  Learn to be quite and attentive.  Try to listen with your heart as well as your mind.  Be open to receive both healing and intelligence.  Put away your anger.  Put away your grief and learn to listen.  This is not easy but it is something that everyone of us can work on and with time, we will all become wise and become masters in learning to hear the voice of the Lord in our lives.

The last thing is to act when you receive a prompting.  President Eyering says, that if we follow the promptings we are given, we will receive more promptings and intelligence.  The converse is true as well.  If we ignore promptings, we will receive less of them.  "For what profiteth a man if he is given a gift and he receives not that gift?"  The Lord will withhold those blessings and wait until a person is penitent and comes seeking again.

In conclusion I say, value all gifts and be grateful to the Giver of those gifts.  We all have them, weather they be wisdom, learning, prophecy, visions, discernment, charity or any number of things.  We are all children of our loving Father.

Bless you all and let's continue to move forward together my dear brothers and sisters.