Hey there everybody, welcome back to another episode of Redeemed Through His Blood, Scott
and David Durfee here as always. How's it going, Dave?
Good, Scott. Oh well.
Yeah, good. Good. We are kind of excited to be back on track here. We've had a couple
of snags in the last few weeks and we're just glad to kind of maybe be putting some normal
see back into our schedules here.
Schools started on the Wasatch Front here in Utah and kids are back in class, but boy
summer sure went fast for me.
Yeah, can you believe it? Follow in the air, football.
Football's starting.
In the corner. This is such a great time of the year, Scott. Chris and I are recovering
and trying to get on a mission, so we look forward to hopefully getting papers submitted
and a call soon. Anyway, such a great time in our lives.
Well I think maybe a lot of our listeners have noticed that we finished the course in
season three. We finished the course in anticipation of your leaving on a mission. We haven't started
back into the course, but we've been talking about really important topics that are really
kind of part of the course as well, Dave. That's been kind of exciting. So along those
lines, we'd invite you to just send us some emails if you have questions. Now's a good
time to ask them if you have topics that potentially you'd like to hear us talk about
or reference at least. Don't hesitate to send us emails on that. You can send those
to heredeemsusatgmail.com. Heredeemsusatgmail.com.
I think that would be awesome if listeners would do that. I think the questions that
I get the most, Scott, when people learn that I'm a patriarch and a sealer in the temple
is two things which go along with those two callings. One is how can I improve in my,
I don't want to say necessarily ability in how can I get more personal revelation? How
can I qualify for? How can I receive more personal revelation? You know, the question
usually comes in the form of what do you do to receive revelation in your life in the
extending patriarchal blessings? And that's been an important topic for me for the last
13 years that I've been a patriarch, Scott. So I really appreciate that question. I think
that we should spend some time on that today. We could probably do a whole course on that.
It would be fun sometime. Maybe after my mission, Scott, we could do a whole course on how to
receive revelation. But I think the second one is what does it mean to cleave to your
covenants? Scripture based on doctrine covenants, section 25. How can I better cleave to my
covenants? What is the power of godliness that is found in the ordinances and covenants
of the gospel? And I would love to explore that maybe next week or in another podcast
soon as we kind of wind up this season. So today, let's jump into, let's just jump into
this, Scott, on the keys of receiving personal revelation. There could be five, there could
be 15. I've selected 10 of what I see as real keys to receiving personal revelation.
Hey, before you dive, before we get into, you know, what those keys are, can we talk
maybe about why would it even be important for us to receive personal revelation? I think
that that's something that we all know is important and we can take for granted that
it's important. But maybe we ought to identify areas in our lives where personal revelation
would be something that Heavenly Father would want us to seek.
Yeah, no, thank you, Scott. Yeah, I think it's really critical that members understand
their privilege as members of the Church of Jesus Christ and as individuals who have had
the gift of the Holy Ghost be stored upon them. The importance of receiving personal
revelation in their lives, revelation that they're able to receive to be parents, to
fulfill their obligations in the Church, their callings in the Church. You know, we've been
so encouraged by President Nelson. It was so interesting that the first talk he gave
as President of the Church was how to increase revelation in the Church and personally. And
he kind of broke that down into two parts, right? Church, revelation in the Church and
personal revelation. And then he gave another talk called Hear Him. And this is one of his
central themes besides the covenant. So the two things I would like to do a podcast on
or I think two of his favorite topics is revelation and the covenant path. So the Lord has been
clear about this, that we should seek the gift of the Holy Ghost that were entitled
to personal revelation to receive light. I think of Doctrine and Covenants section 50
that we're encouraged to receive revelation. I think of President Nelson's counsel that
we should be more intentional about seeking personal revelation in our lives. And personal
revelation, I'm not talking necessarily major things here, Scott. I'm just talking about
recognizing, receiving and responding to the gift of the Holy Ghost. And Brigham Young
stated, we live far beneath our privileges when it comes, I think, to the revelations
and blessings available to us through the gift of the Holy Ghost and our membership
in the Church. It's kind of interesting to me over the years, my lifetime, Scott, that
this is a really sensitive subject that many people in the Church have taken personal revelation
to either an extreme and have found themselves outside of the Church because they begin to
receive revelation for other people or inappropriate revelation or whatever. So it is, I appreciate
your question because I think it's really important that we begin this discussion by
laying down a few principles when it comes to personal revelation. And one of those would
be that you cannot demand revelation. You can't manipulate revelation. You can't force
revelation, that it must come in the Lord's way, in the Lord's timing. And there's too
many people who try to force it. And if you want to force revelation, I'm telling you,
the first person that will help you with that will be Satan and his followers. And you'll
start getting revelation for sure, but it just won't be from the Lord. It's so important
that we learn that we're only entitled to any revelation when it comes to our personal
lives, lives of our family that we may have responsibility for or over. And within our
stewardship of a Church calling and not beyond that, we can't receive revelation for the
bishop. We can't receive revelation for an elder's court president. We can't receive
revelation for other people unless we have stewardship and responsibility for those
people. And I just think that's so important to understand. I have known so many apostates,
some that have been on death row because of receiving revelation for other people or about
other people that they had no responsibility over or stewardship for. So I just think it's
really critical that we understand those basic principles of receiving personal revelation.
Because as much as we love it in the Church, as much as I love to talk about it, I also
understand that it's one of the great occupational hazards of being a member of the Church. It
can be one of those things that is a strength. It can be a terrible weakness if people misuse
it, if people think that they're a prophet, shire and revelator and can receive revelation
for the whole Church or for others. So I hope that our listeners will be patient in this
quest to learn how to receive personal revelation. But I also hope that they'll be confident
that they are, I don't want to use the word entitled, I hate that word, but that they
are able that the Lord is willing, more than willing that He wants to reveal His will to
us, that He wants to reveal His mind to us when it comes to areas of our lives that we
have personal responsibility over. And so I hope our listeners will, while being cautious
about revelation, because I know Satan wants to reveal things to us all the time and sometimes
does. And so maybe just as important as understanding the keys of revelation is understanding how
to identify the Holy Ghost and personal revelation in our life. And let's make sure we touch
on that. Yeah, the power and the gift of discernment definitely is going to come into play.
How to recognize the Holy Ghost. Pretty important. This is kind of timely. You know, I begin
in the next week or two. Actually, I teach a lesson tonight to the entire Institute in
the couple of stakes that I teach in. But you know, as we have kids who are coming to school,
you know, and this is true throughout much of, you know, Western culture at least. And
I know that we have people that are in other cultures and areas who are listening as well.
But you know, at least in Western culture, you know, schools are back in session or getting
back in session. And there's probably been a lot of a lot of father's blessings given.
You know, I know that that was encouraged in in our family growing up. I know you did
that. I know that I've done that. I know that it many people in our ward have been talking
about that. But but you know, when I when I start teaching Institute again this fall
in the next couple of weeks, these kids are coming from all over the world really to attend
Brigham Young University. And they're in a pretty impressionable time in their lives.
And I don't think there's a time in our lives when revelation is not important. But that's
I think where we really begin at that stage in our life to recognize the power and the
importance of personal revelations in our lives. And furthermore, and maybe as important
as the revelation itself is developing the habits around receiving personal revelation
that that will allow us or align us so that we can receive that personal revelation. What
a perfect time to do that then, you know, in our younger years. Now, now if we're not
in our younger years, and I know that many of us are not, that doesn't mean it's too
late. That just means that we establish habits and begin to do that now if we haven't already.
And if those habits are in place, this will just help to enhance what's already there.
Yeah, that's good, Scott. And it's important to understand that there are there's a continuum
when we use the word revelation, that there is a continuum of revelation. And we're talking
about visions that vision can be a revelation, all the way down to a still small voice prompting
of the Holy Ghost. And there are many in between that there would be besides visions, there
could be where we might see angels or the Lord himself, or our or other visions that
are available to us such as Lehi's vision, the dream of the tree of life, which Nephi
prayed that he might have that vision and he did, you know, there's so anyway, that's
kind of at the high end of receiving personal revelation. And, and you could have dreams,
you could you could have voices come into your mind. There are there's just many different
forms of revelation. And, and I'm talking about all of them in describing the keys to
receiving revelation. But I am also talking about how to live, walk with the Holy Ghost
in our life, how to receive individual promptings on a daily basis moment by moment. I think
that's how we need to live our lives. I'm not in when I talk about keys to receiving
revelation, I'm not talking about grandiose things here. I'm talking about small, simple
revelations that we receive on a on a daily basis. When somebody is asked, Scott, to give
a priesthood blessing, that's another form of revelation to use one's priesthood to give
a blessing to seek the mind and will of the Lord on behalf of someone else. And to be
able to give that blessing, one should seek personal revelation. I'm giving a couple blessings
this evening, in which I've been seeking personal revelation for and and one of the points
that I'm not even going to, it's not even listed in the 10 keys, but one of the really
important points that you're making in your comments is, I think preparation, that preparation
precedes revelation. Whether that's daily preparation, reading our scriptures, saying
our prayers, those small, simple things that that cause great things to come to pass, or
I'm talking about fasting, or going to the house of the Lord to receive personal revelation,
those kinds of preparatory acts and events in our lives can can definitely affect our
ability to receive revelations such as giving blessings to our children or others, giving
counsel to loved ones, problems and challenges that we deal with where we're seeking specific
answers. You can't overstate the importance of personal preparation, which my President
Nelson again touches on in his, I think, classic talk, Hear Him, which was given in April of
2020, 200th anniversary of the First Vision. So with maybe that as an introduction, Scott,
let's talk about the 10 keys.
All right.
Anything else?
When we're talking about personal revelation, it doesn't see, it seems to me, it occurs
to me because this is something that I kind of try and deal with on a pretty constant
basis, especially as I'm trying to help others, especially who, you know, may be struggling
with alcoholism or drug addiction and the various things like that in recovery. You
know, I'm not, I don't know that there's an entitlement that I get for them to receive
revelation for them. But I will tell you this, and I don't really need to know the answer
to that, but I will tell you this, that if I'm living my life right, and if I'm staying
in constant contact, and we talk about that in AA, in fact, it's one of our steps in step
11 is to maintain conscious contact with Heavenly Father. And if I'm doing that, it's interesting
how, for example, I'll be having a conversation with a person that I'm working with in AA,
and a question will just come to my mind to ask them. And that question will have actually
turned out to have been, you know, the very thing that we needed to talk about. And I
have to chalk that up to personal revelation at some level, right?
Yeah, absolutely, Scott. I mean, we've been asked that we be missionaries, that we share
the Gospel with others, and you're standing in a grocery line, and you feel impressed
to turn to the person next to you and ask them an inspired question or whatever. I mean,
the Lord loves His children, and the Lord through us can help us to know when and who
and what we should say. And it's all about timing. And it can, you know, sometimes it
can be, I think, a total stranger that we say something to, that the Lord wants that
person to hear. So yeah, those events are for real, for sure.
And then you said something, you said that, you know, what we really are striving to do
here is learning how to walk and live and be with the Holy Ghost, have the constant companionship
or be aware of the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost in our lives. And you know,
we know that from the course that we've been through three times on the podcast here, we
know that the Holy Ghost is the administrator of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives.
But in addition to that, the Holy Ghost will also bring all things to our remembrance,
right, and help us to understand and know things that we wouldn't have known otherwise.
And I think that that relationship with the Holy Ghost is extremely, well, it's absolutely
key to what we're talking about.
Well, again, one of the basic principles, I think of Revelation, Scott, is that we don't
use Revelation ever, ever, ever, ever to try to manipulate others. We don't use Revelation
to get what we want. We use Revelation to help others connect with their Heavenly Father
or to feel the love of God and to help them place them in a position where they can feel
the Holy Ghost and where they may desire and seek to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Because ultimately it is the gift of the Holy Ghost that administers the Atonement of Jesus
Christ into the lives of others. And of course, Heavenly Father is going to do everything that
he can do to help all of his children in and out of the church to receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost because it is the messenger and the administrator of the Atonement of Jesus
Christ.
So that's kind of the essence of why God gives us Revelation. It is not to get our way to
manipulate people, to impress people, or to make ourselves look good or powerful or anything
else. I just think that's an important principle that one has to go by is if I feel impressed
to say something to that individual, and this is one of the keys, this is actually the second
key of Revelation, is that you have to understand what your motivation is. President Eyring
years ago said that our motivations is one of the pavilions that hides God from us, you
know, quoting the Scripture from Liberty Jail, where art thou and where is the pavilion that
hideeth thy covering, the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place. So I think it's just really
important Scott, that we always if one's wondering, is this from the Lord or is this from me?
Revelation has to really search their heart and their motives. In all the Revelation that
we are able to receive, that we do receive, we have to make sure our motivations are pure
and not selfish.
I think too that we need to seek Revelation for ourselves first, right? I think that to
seek Revelation, if we're not in a position of stewardship, if we're not in a position
of parenthood or spouse or whatever like that, it's going to be pretty rare that Revelation
for other people will come to us. It's going to be pretty rare. So I think that our main
emphasis is going to be on receiving personal revelation. And if we're open to receiving
that personal revelation, oftentimes so often actually in this podcast, we've talked about
taking personal inventories. And if we will approach those personal inventories as we
start to introspectively take a look at ourselves, if we'll approach that with the same the same
steps, the same approach that we're going to be talking about today to receive revelation.
If we'll look for personal revelation in our personal inventories, then we will be more
purely equipped to move forward in helping others when those occasions come that we would
receive revelation to talk to somebody else about.
For sure. And repentance will probably play a role in taking an inventory. But it's also
important, Scott, to point out, the church doesn't have a monopoly on personal revelation.
The power of the Holy Ghost is very real in the lives of many billions, billions who
aren't in the church. The Lord loves all of His children. The light of Christ is in every
man and that through the light of Christ, that can that can even be a form of revelation
where they they know right from wrong. And if they will choose right, they'll receive
more light, knowledge, understanding, wisdom. We do not have a monopoly or a corner on the
market when it comes to revelation, Scott.
And as individuals use it for the right purposes, again, the right motives, the right in true,
true righteous intent, there anyone anyone can be a better parent, mom, dad, brother,
sister, neighbor, friend, whatever, by seeking the light of Christ in their life and by seeking
to follow, to know and follow the will of God.
So with with that, and by the way, these 10 keys of personal revelation, anyone can benefit
from these member or nonmember as well. I think the first one, Scott, is and we've talked
a lot about this over different seasons of podcasts is the greatest lesson I ever learned
early on being a patriarch is that one must learn to control their personal emotions in
order to receive personal revelations. Fear is one of the greatest negative emotions that
keeps us from understanding, knowing, following the will of God and really from feeling his
love. And what I what I've learned, Scott, is that you can't stop as a natural man, human,
t-lessual being in a T in a, I guess we're not really t-lessual beings, but we have t-lessual
bodies and t-lessual world, the influence of the world and all that acts upon us and
all of the imbalances of hormones and chemicals that make us up as a as an individual. Scott,
you can't stop inappropriate emotions from coming into our hearts and minds, but I have
learned that we are agents and we can act and not be acted upon. And I've learned that
one cannot stop negative emotions, but all people have some control over their emotions,
Scott. Now, I'm not I, I some will maybe have more control over their emotions than others,
depending upon their chemical, mental makeup. I know that I get that. But generally speaking,
just in the majority, most of us have more control over our emotions than we think we
do.
Well, and most of us have the ability to develop more control over emotion. Now, not everybody
does. You mentioned that, but we need to know, you know, if we're struggling with an emotion
and we all will from time to time, if we can't just say, I'm just going to be stuck with
this emotion. If we are striving to draw closer to him, and then we can expect that those
emotions can be, you know, refined.
My experience talking with hundreds of people about this over the last 13 years since I
learned the lesson, Scott, is that people aren't even aware of their emotions. They don't really,
they're not even that self aware of negative, inappropriate emotions to do anything about
it. And so they just go with the flow. And they drift down a river of negativity that
leads them to all kinds of inappropriate emotions. And some of those, I think the most prevalent
inappropriate emotions, Scott, that we feel as natural man, human, we all feel them. The
prophets feel them. I know Jesus felt them, but he didn't let them stay. But those inappropriate
emotions would be fear, which I think is huge. And I still feel it every day. I think everybody
feels that every day in one form or another, for different lengths of time or another. Pride
or ego, inappropriate emotion. I know I'm talking about the negative pride here, not
some people have righteous pride. That's fine. I don't want to get caught up into that. And
then lust, lust and greed and jealousy and envy and comparing ourselves to others can
cause all kinds of negative emotions. So, so the first thing one must do is one must identify
their negative emotions, which they will have every day. It's being human. But then they
must act and not continue to be acted upon by praying with all energy of heart, Maronite
48 to be filled with the love of Christ, because perfect love casteth out all fear. So you
can't stop negative emotions from coming into your heart and mind, but you can learn exercise,
experiment and learn how to replace them, how to not let them stay once you are aware
of them. But honestly, Scott, I think people have become, it's become so habitual with
some people that number one, they're not aware, but number two, even if they were, it's such
a habit with them and they think, well, that's just who I am or that's the way my dad was
or that's the way my mom was or that's just the way I'm wired or whatever.
Well, dangerously, that can actually become a badge of honor for some.
Yeah, you know, right. Just because like what you said, that's who we are. That's what we
do. Yeah, I'm just, I just got to be honest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man, that drives me crazy.
I just got to be honest with my emotions. Yeah. Yeah. Even those, even those, those emotions
are hellish, celestial negative and damaging to others potentially. Yeah. Besides the person
feeling them and to just accept that and to go with the flow and to drift is just wrong.
Anyway, I know I understand all those who are thinking I don't get it. I get it. I lived that
way for 57 years and I'm really, I was really sad once I learned this lesson to think how much of
my life was controlled by fear, pride, and all the other negative emotions that one can feel
as a human. But I know that again, perfect love can cast without all fear, perfect love cast
without all pride, perfect love cast without all lust, lust and lust and love are not even close
to being the same thing. In fact, it's interesting the connection between all these negative emotions.
I think, I think fear is the result of pride. I think our insecurities lead to pride and our
fear about all of that. That's all connected. I even know in fact, the scriptures, the Lord makes
this connection that lust is connected to fear. It says that if you lust in your heart, this is
DNC 63, if you lust in your heart, you will be you will lose the spirit and be filled with fear.
So all of these negative emotions are interlocked. I don't think you just feel one. I think you
they're they're just all manifestations of the same major negative emotions that exist
and being mortal. They're they're they're all connected. And if perfect love cast without all
fear, perfect love cast without all pride, perfect love cast without all lust, jealousy and be greed,
all the rest. And it's important to understand that perfect love is the love of Christ.
It's charity that Moroni describes in Moroni seven. It's it fails not it fears not it doesn't envy.
It is the perfect love of Christ. God is pure. It's powerful. It's humbling. And it's and it's
and it's always placed towards an object. It's I know I'm it's I'm probably sounding kind of abstract.
But I this love that I pray for with all energy of heart when I'm filled with fear,
it's always towards either a person and Jesus Christ is always part of that,
that I feel the love of Christ for that person. I know Jesus died for that person because Jesus
Christ loved him perfectly. So Christ is always a part. My perfect love has an object and Christ
is always a part of that. It just occurred to me that you know if we if we want to replace
all of these negative emotions and feelings, etc. with faith and love, then you know where
from whence does that faith and love come? We need to be there. You know, we need to do that. And
and it will again getting back to the Christ and loving Christ exactly and getting back to the
course. We have spent you know, weeks talking about exactly how to achieve that. So sometimes,
you know, if we look at personal revelation and we were to go through these steps,
if we didn't understand and have a relationship with Jesus Christ through his Atonement and
Heavenly Father through Christ Atonement and the Holy Ghost because of Christ Atonement,
then none of this stuff would even be really possible. I mean, we could go through an intellectual
and and try and have some discipline and self mastery, you know, and and all of that around
this. But unless we have that relationship established because of what took place through
Christ Atonement, then none of this is really even possible in its fullness.
Yeah, no, you're right. Yeah. And number step number two is that relationship, right? You know,
is is a so number one is identifying and I can't I cannot overstate how important it is to identify
your negative emotions. But so many people aren't even aware of them. Honestly, I I'm sure I'm
not even always aware of them. I mean, I I've become super sensitized by fear.
And when I when I feel fear, Scott, I'm I pray with perfect love. And it doesn't matter where I'm
at. You know, I'm driving down the freeway or wherever I am. I pray I pray with all energy of
heart for perfect love. And it's a miracle. That's the only way I can describe it. Is that my heart
is flipped. The heart the center of my emotions. My heart is flipped from fear to love. And wherever
there's love, there can be no fear. Now, I'm not talking about I'm not talking about I'm talking
about irrational fear. There there are natural good fears, by the way, there are and those are
given to us out of love to protect us. Joseph Smith talked about the the fear of death, which was
a gift from God. Not talking about that. I'm not talking about the the fear of a child running out
in the middle of the street. I'm not talking about that. That that is a preservation of life.
That's a different fear. I'm talking about the, you know, all of the inappropriate fear that
we've what do they think of me? Yeah, what if they don't like me? What? Yeah, yeah, you know,
anyway, big book about call autonomous page 80, excuse me, 68. We trust infinite God rather than
our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role he assigns just to the extent that we do.
We think he would have us and humbly rely on him. Does he enable us to match calamity with serenity?
That's important, right? Well, we so we trust God. We trust his infinite wisdom. And as we do,
and to the degree we do, I would submit, are we able to match calamities? And we all have
calamities in our lives with serenity. Then it goes down a couple of verses or a couple of paragraphs.
All men of faith have courage. Okay, so it's talking about faith and fear now. All men of faith
have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for God. Instead, we let him demonstrate
through us what he can do. We ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he
would have us be. And at once we commence to outgrow fear. Yeah, no, I love that. And someone,
someone has said that that courage is not the absence of fear. You know, having having courage
is acting in the face of fear. And in the scriptures are even more, more profound and complete than
that. And that through perfect love, right, we can overcome fear. Yeah, and I would say
that courage is facing fear with the confidence of a loving God. Yeah. Awesome. I mean, I'm sure
there's atheists who have great courage in the face of fear, right? But it's not as it's not as
complete. But even those atheists, if the even those atheists, if they're able to do that, there's
a power that's coming out of them or from somewhere else is greater than them that they're able to
identify with. And so, you know, if you're not, if you're an atheist, you're not going to call
that God. But if you're not an atheist, you might. Well, back back to our back to our premise here,
Scott, that that we were we can receive personal revelation. And that if we do not learn this
lesson, that negative inappropriate emotions keep us from feeling the Holy Ghost, we will really
limit our ability to receive personal revelation. And I think everybody knows one of my favorite
quotes of all time is Elder Richard G. Scott, who said that trying to fill the spirit of the Lord
when you are filled with negative inappropriate emotions, such as fear, pride, lust, and he
may he gives us a long list. Trying to fill the spirit of the Lord when you're filled with
negative inappropriate emotions is like trying to savor the favor, the flavor of a sweet grape
while you are chewing on a jalapeno pepper.
That's the truth. I know that I have experienced that. And I just really hope our listeners
take this as a course and work on it, work on it, experiment with it, become number one first,
foremost, aware of your negative emotions, and then don't accept them. Don't say that's who I am.
That's not who you are. That is not appropriate to just accept those. You're more than that. You are,
your spirit has greater power to act upon those things than you think your spirit does.
And if one will pray with all energy of heart, you'll experience a miracle if you
pray for that perfect love of Christ. And with that perfect love of Christ,
there will be no fear, lust, pride. That doesn't mean you won't fill them an hour from now.
You fill them tomorrow and the next day. But make this become a standard in your life. Make it
become a regular practice in your life.
It looks like we've got the second key. Know God, learn of Christ, develop faith in their
character and attributes, and strengthen your covenant relationship with them through temple
worship, ordinances, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. And then I love this part that you wrote, Dave,
make the who the source of your power and always the answer to your questions and the solutions to
your problems. We really, Scott, so this, I don't know how I didn't know quite how to say this
better, but so many times we pray for answers to questions, solutions to problems, right?
And what we should be praying for is to know the will of God concerning those questions and those
problems. So many times we just pray, bless me, bless me, bless me, bless me. And we're not really
even seeking personal revelation when we pray like that. We're not. We're just asking Him to fix it.
What we should be praying for, our focus should be that I know He can help me solve it, that through
Him, through His help, that He expects me to be an agent, that He expects me to learn from this,
and that with revelation, personal revelation, I can't, I mean, Jesus Christ is always the answer.
He's the answer to every question. He's the answer to every problem. But so many times we just pray
for problem to go away, problem to be fixed, problem to be healed. Instead of asking what
lessons do I need to learn from this? What can I do to help this situation or to improve this
situation? Or, you know, really, Scott, we don't, so many times when we pray, we just want it fixed.
We're not even seeking personal revelation, really. And I just think we need to, that the who
is the answer to all of our questions and solution to all of our problems. And to know His will is
what I really meant by that. And to, in this number two, it's kind of the process described by
Elder Nilly Maxwell of going from admiration to adoration to emulation. And to ask, what would
thou have me do? What can I, what would Jesus do if He were here? It's kind of that process,
Scott, of going from just admiring them to really adoring them and then seeking to become like them.
And that, when we get to that level in our relationship with the who, with God, the Father,
his Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, it really opens the conduit to them, which is where
all revelation comes from.
I love that you talk about that our prayers should really be to seek their God's will for us, right?
And that can only come once we've established that relationship. You know, we have to have faith,
we have to have that relationship. That has to be really a habit in our lives to have the habit
of relationship with deity in our lives. And I love that. And I love how you just talked about, too,
how we should be seeking. That should really be our prayer is what's your will for us. And I alluded
to this a minute ago. I'm going to read it. This is step 11 from, again, the 12 steps of Alcoholics
Anonymous. So this is the 11th step. So in order for the 11th step to be in play here, obviously,
we've gone through 10 previous steps. And those 10 previous steps have helped us to identify the very
things that we identify in this podcast. Number one is our dependence on Jesus Christ. Number two
is develop that relationship with Jesus Christ. Once that relationship with Jesus Christ is
established, and we've begun to clean house and we've started to make amends and, you know, and
take care of the wrongs in our lives. And we seek to maintain and establish or to establish and then
maintain that relationship. Here's step 11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve
our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for a knowledge of his will for
us and the power to carry that out.
Wow, I love that. His will for us and the power to carry that out. That's an awesome prayer.
Not only to know his will, but ask for his help and power to carry out his will. That's kind of
that's kind of the essence of step number two. But to really know his will, Scott, it's so helpful
to understand him and to know him.
Yeah, I think that you put that pretty softly. It's so helpful to know him. It's absolutely
critical. We can't know his will if we don't know him, right?
Yeah, I, it's just really important for us to know that God loves us. He wants the best for us,
that he's our father, that we have a father-child relationship. It's, I, that's just really critical
that we, that we know that he is a man, that we know that he has, that he has emotions.
And he feels, he always feels love for us. He always wants the best for us. All that he does
is because he loves the world. I mean, it's just so many great scriptures. We could do a whole
other course probably on, on knowing God. But it's just really critical that in all, in our daily
life that we, we seek to try to know him better, that we have a personal relationship with him and
that I'm praying even if I'm not, even if I don't need anything or I don't have a problem,
which isn't, you know, that's never true or that I don't have a question, which is never true. But,
but even, even when I'm not asking for those kinds of things, I need to just at least express my love
and try to fill his love. So I, and you know, another thing, Scott, that I've noticed in
getting a closer relationship with God in, in how we pray, since I think that you've made this
point so many times, if you want to know him, you got to spend time with him, right? Like you've
brought up with your relationship with others who you love, you want to know him, you got to spend
time with him, spend time with him. I think one of those is in prayer, to make time to pray. And
that when we pray, I've caught myself, Scott, many times just thinking, I thank thee for my blessings,
right? Now that's a great prayer. Nothing wrong with that prayer. But it's a little different
when I say, Heavenly Father, I'm thankful for thee. I'm thankful to thee for these blessings.
Instead of just being thankful for blessings, we should be thankful to God. That strengthens my
relationship with my Heavenly Father when I'm not just going through a list of blessings, right?
But when I'm acknowledging him as the source of all those blessings, when I say, I'm thankful to thee
for my family, honestly, it does something to my thoughts and my heart than to just say,
I'm thankful for my family. Because I'm talking to him and I'm thankful to him. I'm more thankful to
him than anything else. And I just think sometimes we neglect that. It's easy to bypass that and
just go through our list of blessings. But if we don't acknowledge him as the source of those
blessings, our relationship with him may not necessarily be strengthened. So I just watch,
watch how you pray, you know, be careful, be careful how you pray. And language, language of
prayer is important. And I think it's such a blessing when one can pray out loud. We've been
encouraged to pray out loud. I think Elder Holland encouraged us to do that recently, not long ago.
Sometimes it's not appropriate to pray out loud. I understand that. It's so interesting that Joseph
Smith said that it wasn't until he prayed vocally. I'm sure he had offered many prayers, but he said
this was the first time that he had tried to pray vocally about his problem and his question when he
received the first vision. Prayer is an important key to the second key of a personal revelation.
How can we come to know the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost and gain a closer relationship with
them? It sounds to me and I think that we'll probably need to continue this conversation
next week on the rest of the keys. David was probably just kind of push pause on that one.
But it seems to me, though, that when we're talking about receiving personal revelation,
first of all, revelation, first of all, we need to understand the importance and how each of us
needed and how we can be benefited. And those around us could be benefited by receiving that or
by being able to receive this personal revelation. But then when we start to align and learn how
this doesn't look like is something that we prepare for tomorrow. So I'm going to
receive personal revelation tomorrow. I need to do these things today. This is a way of life.
This is how we live our lives. This isn't just an exercise to achieve something. This is something
that if we put our lives on this path, then personal revelation will become part of our lives
as well. Peace itself can be a revelation. I mean, joy can be a revelation. These are fruits of the
Spirit. You know, these are fruits that are given to us through the Holy Ghost. And to live in a
state of peace when hell is all around us, to live, to have joy in even times of sorrow,
that can be a revelation. Those are revelations, Scott.
And I think if we position them that way and allow ourselves to begin to see them that way,
the grace of our Heavenly Father's love will come at us more fully when we just see,
these revelations have been here for me and I've been receiving some of these revelations all along.
He must really love me.
Yeah. And to be more aware.
Yeah.
To be more aware of those.
Right.
And the source and the who.
Yeah.
Of all of those is, I think, really important in our relationship with him.
Well, let's continue this conversation next week. This is super important and I don't want to rush
through. We're right up against time to end, but we probably ought to come up with some sort of
preparatory invitation, Dave.
Well, experiment. Just please, everyone, experiment with identifying your negative
emotions and not accepting them, not just living with them, but to begin to, with God's help,
pray with all energy of heart for God's help to be filled with his love.
And believe me, those negative emotions will be flipped or or melt away as you pray with all
energy of heart for his love, the love of Christ, charity.
So experiment with that. Just, you won't be perfect at it.
It's a process. It takes practice, a lot of practice. It will take days, weeks, months, years
to become really efficient at it. But I think it's a really important part of mortality
is to learn what it means not to be acted upon, but to, for sure, we're acted upon,
but to know that we have power to not just react, but to overcome those negative emotions through
the Atonement of Jesus Christ and through the gift of the Holy Ghost and the power of prayer.
So experiment with that. Try to improve your prayers when you pray.
Pray, seek to really come to know God and learn of Christ. Learn of me, he said.
Walk in the meekness of my spirit. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden,
and I will give you rest. Learn of me. Take, you know, I mean, he invites us to do that over and
over again. Scott threw out the, throughout the scriptures. And as we do that, come to know his
character, attributes and perfections, our faith is increased and personal revelation will also
increase and look unto me in every thought. I mean, we talk about that in almost every
and every podcast and just extremely important. Here's a scripture I kind of want to end on.
This is in Dr. In Covenants 121 45. If we're really looking for how we can add this gift of
personal revelation or qualify ourselves to receive this personal revelation, this is a good
place to start. This is actually step four, Scott. Okay, so we're going to skip a little bit ahead
here, but we'll come back to this step for increased personal purity and virtue. All right,
so be anticipating that for our next discussion. Here it is 121 45. Let thy bowels also be full
of charity towards all men and to the household of faith and let virtue garnish thy thoughts
unceasingly. Then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God and the doctrine of the
priesthood shall distill upon thy soul as it does from heaven. I testify that if we engage in that
practice and that attempt in that effort to draw closer to him and to have our bowels full of
mercy towards all men, the God's spirit will be with us in our lives and that personal revelation
will abound. I pray that God will give us the eyes to see it in each of our lives.
Thanks for being with us. We look forward to being with you again next week and until then,
be well.