Introduction
President Clark is taking a real risk inviting me to speak in another BYU-Idaho devotional. The last time I gave a devotional here, the Spori Building burned down a few hours later. Though that was probably not my fault, President Clark has likely alerted all the fire departments for several counties around--just as a precaution, of course.
As one who often attends conventions and seminars with other deans, I can tell you that President Kim Clark was an enormously well-respected dean of the Harvard Business School before President Hinckley asked him to take over the post at the head of this wonderful institution. He and his colleagues have assembled a remarkable group of talented and inspired faculty and administrators and attracted a superbly well-prepared student body to this school. Because of who you are and the education you are receiving here, the world will surely be a better place. I congratulate all of you. You are a large part of the reason that, in my travels to visit business and educational leaders around the world, the qualities found by applying the teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ are becoming more and more positively recognized and sought after.
President Clark has suggested that I address a difficult but vital topic--how to listen to the voice of the Spirit, how to receive personal revelation, or how to be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. This is so important for you to understand because during these relatively few years, you are facing so many of life's pivotal decisions; such as, education, missions, marriage, careers, where to live, decisions about families. The choices you make now will form the foundations upon which you will build the structure that will be your mortal life on this earth. How important it is to have help from heaven during this time.
Like you, I have often asked, "What is the will of the Lord for me? How do I get answers to my prayers? How do I discern between the Spirit's voice and purely emotional feelings? When I make mistakes, how do I know when I am forgiven?" Fortunately, we have a loving Heavenly Father who, with his Son, created us and sent us here to the earth to allow us to grow and make choices, to test us to see if we would determine to follow His Son, and to experience the joys and the sorrows of mortality. He gave this assurance to his disciples as he taught them during the last hours before the crucifixion: "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you."[1] When we speak of listening for the voice of the Spirit, we are speaking of listening for the promptings of the Holy Ghost--this member of the Godhead whose responsibility it is to teach, testify, recall to remembrance, comfort, buoy up, and bring peace to our souls.
President Boyd K. Packer gave us this comfort and challenge, "The Lord has a way of pouring pure intelligence into our minds to prompt us, to guide us, to teach us, to warn us. You can know the things you need to know instantly! Learn to receive inspiration."[2]
In fact, each week, the young priest at the sacrament table utters a prayer on our behalf, "that they may always have his Spirit to be with them." How do we have the Spirit of the Holy Ghost with us constantly and recognize His voice?
I must caution you at the outset that there are no easy formulas. But perhaps some of the observations and suggestions we discuss today may help us enjoy more of the Spirit's direction in our lives.
An Owlish Analogy
A simple analogy will help guide our discussion. My hobby, going back to when I was 10-years-old, is birding--you might call it "bird watching." I don't call it that because I spend much of my time in the field not watching but carefully listening. I can usually hear more birds in a wood than I can ever see. One of my favorite birding activities is to take people out at night (or in the very early morning) to find owls. Owls are actually fairly common but most people have never seen one in the wild because owls are nocturnal. However, we can sometimes attract an owl into view by making the sound of an owl with our voice or with a recording. One night, for example, I took a group of 8-10 year-old Cub Scouts with their leaders to a wooded area. With the promise that they might see a real owl, I asked them to be exceptionally quiet. No talking, no whispering, no feet shuffling, no movement at all. (Can you imagine Cub Scouts being that quiet?) Then I played the call of a Western Screech Owl--a very soft, bouncy call.
The scouts were very quiet. After playing the call for a few more minutes, we listened in silence. But, it was not really complete silence--we could hear the growl of large trucks on the distant freeway, the barking of dogs, the sound of a jet plane, the whirring of electrical machinery, the noise of a police siren. It is surprising how much noise surrounds us--even at night. Finally my ears picked up the very soft but distant call of a small owl. The boys and their leaders could not hear this sound at first amid all the other competing sounds of the night. I played the recording again; the owl flew closer and called a bit nearer. Soon they could all hear the soft sound. Then, a shadow silently crossed the night sky and landed in a tree. I shined my flashlight on the little owl. It looked down at us with its large yellow and black eyes. The boys and their leaders were so excited--most of them had never seen an owl. We watched it for about five minutes and then this treasured little jewel flew away quietly into the night.
What can we learn from this experience of finding an owl on a dark night? The voice of an owl and the voice of the Spirit are both very soft and still and can only be discerned with great effort. As President Henry B. Eyring said, "Now, I testify [the voice of the Spirit] is a small voice. It whispers, not shouts. And so you must be very quiet inside. That is why you may wisely fast when you want to listen. And that is why you will listen best when you feel, 'Father, thy will, not mine, be done.' You will have a feeling of 'I want what you want.' Then, the still small voice will seem as if it pierces you."[3]
You may recall the remarkable account of Nephi and Lehi preaching to the Lamanites shortly before the birth of the Savior. They were thrown in prison. As the Lamanite guards went to retrieve them to slay them, a voice from heaven was heard. "...it was not a voice of thunder, neither was it a voice of a great tumultuous noise, but behold, it was a still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper, and it did pierce even to the very soul--"[4] How do we learn to listen for that still, small voice of perfect mildness in our dark nights? Let me share with you nine guidelines that may be useful if we desire to be more receptive to the voice of the Spirit.
Guideline 1: We Must Do Our Homework First.
An illustration may help. Many of you will face a decision my wife and I once faced: Which career path is right for us? Specifically, we were trying to decide whether I should go to medical school or return to graduate school to pursue another academic program. To us, this loomed as a large decision in our lives, one that might impact our family significantly for years to come. At the time we had three little boys and I had already been in school at the college level for five years. We were anxious to resolve this great uncertainty in our lives in a way that would let us be serviceable in the kingdom and have a good family life.
We applied the familiar pattern spelled out in the 9th section of the Doctrine and Covenants: "...study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right."5 We made lists of pros and cons, we talked to people in both fields, we talked to family members who knew us best, we talked to our bishop, we talked a lot to each other, and we prayed often. Finally, we felt we had accumulated all the information we could. We realized that doing our homework was a vital part of the process--we could not fairly expect heaven to answer our prayers if we didn't do our part first. We then made a tentative decision based on our best judgment. Then we set a time for us to fast together. During our fast, we prayed earnestly, asking Heavenly Father for divine confirmation of our tentative decision. We sincerely wanted to do what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. After our fast, after our prayers, after our best work, we talked about the promptings we felt that Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, both of us felt a "stupor of thought", a darkness, about the tentative decision we had made. It seemed unsettling, the wrong direction for our family. As we considered the alternative decision, we felt a clearness of thought and a peaceful assurance that the alternative decision was the right one for us.
Heavenly Father requires us to do our part. It was never His plan to do work for us that we can possibly do for ourselves. If He did, He would be robbing us of our chance to grow and develop our own decision-making skills. I'm guessing that you have found that He does not help us do well on a test for which we neglected to study. And I have some test scores from my undergraduate years to prove it.
Guideline 2: By Keeping the Commandments We Tune Our Spiritual Receiver.
While I don't pretend to understand the physiological mechanism, there is a spiritual "receiver" within our souls where promptings of the Spirit are felt. President James E. Faust said, "How do revelation and inspiration operate? Each person has a built-in 'receiving set' which, when fine-tuned, can be a receiver of divine communication. Said Job, 'There is a spirit in man: and ... the Almighty giveth them understanding.'(Job 32:8)"[6] We need to make sure that our receiver is always fine-tuned to the right channel. Can we expect blessings from heaven when our lives are not in harmony with commandments from heaven?
President Harold B. Lee said, "Some of us fail to live so that we can understand the message that comes from eternity when God speaks, but if each of us could commit ourselves to obey God's commandments and live as we should, a wonderful change would be effected in us, and we could then hear the messages from the unseen world."[7]
Sin makes our hearts less receptive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Nephi told his rebellious brothers: "Ye are swift to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. Ye have seen an angel, and he spake unto you; yea, ye have heard his voice from time to time; and he hath spoken unto you in a still small voice, but ye were past feeling, that ye could not feel his words."[8] Because of sin, Laman's and Lemuel's "receivers" were not able to feel and understand the voice of the Spirit.
Thankfully, Heavenly Father doesn't require his children to be perfect before He gives us inspiration for He often helps when we are in serious difficulty--sometimes even when brought on by ourselves. Consider Saul on the road to Damascus and the conversion of Alma the Younger.
Guideline 3: Minimize Competition with the Voice of the Spirit.
As we learned in locating our little screech owl, we must do all we can to minimize competing sounds--to tune them out. I asked the Cub Scouts to not make a sound. We, too, need to reduce the noises that compete with the voice of the Spirit in our lives. Can you think what some of these noises might be? This noise is usually not measured in decibels but by "spiritual interference." What factors make you less likely to hear this still, small voice of the Spirit? I can think of some in my life: the spirit of contention, gossiping, criticizing others, loud and profane talk or music--those draw me away from the Spirit. What about pornography, illicit drug use, materialism, dishonesty, time-wasting (such as, excessively playing video games or watching television)? You get the picture. You and I must rid ourselves of anything in our lives that detracts from our ability to hear the voice of the Spirit. Sometimes it only requires something simple. My son said the other day, "I found that by turning off the car radio, I could hear the voice of the Spirit more often."
Guideline 4: Seek out Places Where the Spirit is More Likely.
To find owls I took the Cub Scouts to a place where I knew owls were most likely to be. While I have sometimes seen an owl in an unusual place, we did not look for owls at a shopping mall, in the middle of the ocean, or in a movie theater. Trees are a more likely location--trees near fields. Likewise, we increase our chances of hearing the Spirit's voice if we locate ourselves in places the Spirit is likely to be--like a quiet room in our home or apartment, in a Holy Temple, in sacrament meeting, in a quiet wood, on a mountainside, or in a book of scripture. Enos sought the Spirit in the solitude of a forest,[9] Moses retreated to a high mountain,[10] Joseph knelt in the Sacred Grove. You will find that you can hear the "still small voice" more easily if you spend more time in quiet, contemplative, peaceful surroundings than in the harsh, loud, contentious environment so often present in the world.
President Boyd K. Packer is also interested in birds. He has crafted some of the most life-like carvings of birds I have ever seen. He recounted: "I took up wood carving as a means of relaxation. I carved birds and spent many hours on a carving...During those hours working with my hands, I pondered on the marvels of creation, and inspiration would flow. As I carved wood, I carved out talks. Carving was restful to me. Sometimes when I got a little stressed and cranky, my wife would say, 'Well, you had better start another carving.'"[11] Finding solitude in his woodworking shop, he was able to listen carefully for the voice of the Spirit to create some of the most memorable and profound talks given in General Conference.
To find an owl, we must train our ear to hear the voice of an owl. To do this I practice. I have listened to many hours of owl calls on tapes and CDs. I listen until the sounds sink into my mind. Then I try to recognize those sounds in the field. I listen also to similar sounding species so I can distinguish one kind of owl from another. It takes years of practice. But how exactly can we practice listening to the Spirit?
Guideline 5: Practice Listening to the Spirit's Voice by Serving Others.
Joseph Smith gave us a glimpse of how to practice. He taught, "A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon..."[12] In my experience, such flashes of "pure intelligence" are most often connected with service. You've probably felt such promptings before. They "taste good." They feel pure and right. Someone needs your help. Action is required--your action. It is often something very small.
A home teacher I know in our ward was recently sitting at home one evening when the prompting came into his mind--"Go visit Brother Jones! Now!" (And it wasn't even the end of the month!) He acted on that prompting and visited Brother Jones at a critical moment to comfort him. Brother Jones, whose wife had passed away, and some of his family members needed to hear the home teacher's testimony of eternal life. That teaching moment, that singular opportunity, may have passed forever if the prompting had not been headed.
Don't we all marvel at the inspirational stories President Thomas S. Monson tells of visiting widows, serving the poor, blessing suffering hospital patients--each exemplifying President Monson's personal ministry to bless Heavenly Father's children? Besides teaching us service, what else do these stories tell us? That when the voice of the Spirit prompts President Monson, he responds. If we respond to those quiet promptings that come to us, I promise we will find that our ability to feel the voice of the Spirit will increase and it will come with more frequency. On the other hand, I fear that if we ignore the promptings, the Spirit will withdraw and prompt us less and less often.
It makes sense that the voice of the Spirit would be more often heard when we serve others. King Benjamin reminds us "...when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your God."[13]
As we try in our often feeble ways to assist in helping His children, He will magnify our efforts through the influence of His Spirit. A German woman, a convert to the Church, was in dire medical danger caused by a life-threatening heart ailment. She was driven to the mission home early one morning so she could seek a priesthood blessing from the mission president. However, he was not in town. She turned to his two assistants: "You hold the priesthood, you can bless me and I know I will be healed and be able to care for my nine children who need me at home." The elders did not have nearly as much faith as this German sister had, but they had faith that the Lord could magnify them as they served. The elder acting as voice in sealing the anointing reported later that as they laid their hands on the woman's head he at first felt shaky and nervous. But gradually ideas, words, instructions and promises began to flow into his mind from the promptings of the Spirit. A beautiful, powerful blessing ensued--one not planned or even thought possible by the elders. Healing occurred as the two elders became instruments in the hands of a loving Heavenly Father to bless that faithful saint. If you want to hear the voice of the Spirit more, serve more.
Guideline 6: Practice Listening to the Voice of the Spirit through Scriptures and General Conference.
Elder David A. Bednar said, "The scriptures, in essence, are a written 'recording' of the voice of the Lord--a voice we feel in our hearts more than we hear with our ears. And as we study the content and feel the spirit of the written word of God, we learn to hear His voice in the words we read and to understand the means whereby the words are given to us by the Holy Ghost. 'These words are not of men nor of man, but of me...For it is my voice which speaketh them unto you; for they are given by my Spirit unto you...Wherefore, you can testify that you have heard my voice, and know my words.' (D&C 18:34-36)"[14]
Similarly, we can practice recognizing the voice of the Spirit by listening carefully to General Conference. May I suggest that we don't just listen with our ears but that we also write down the impressions that come into our minds as we prayerfully listen. We might do the same with scripture reading, sacrament meeting, or any other time where the voice of the Spirit is present. If we notice promptings of the Spirit by writing them down, these promptings will come more often and we will improve our ability to recognize them.
A newly called stake president sought inspiration for a serious challenge he faced in his stake. As he read the New Testament one morning, inspiration came into his mind on how to solve the problem. Interestingly, the inspiration had no direct relationship to the content of the passages he was reading that morning. But don't you think that when our hearts and minds are tuned to understanding the voice of the Spirit through the scriptures our "receiver" is better able to hear the voice of the Spirit about a concern in a stake? Or a possible eternal relationship? Or a mission? Or a career path? Or a family challenge?
Guideline 7: Learn to Differentiate the Spirit's Voice from Imitators.
When listening for birds, we must be very careful to not be fooled. Some birds can sound like other birds. A Blue Jay can make a great imitation of a Red-tailed Hawk. I once thought I heard the call of a rare and secretive bird called a Black Rail--it turned out to be a very common Northern Mockingbird. It takes practice to discern the difference between one bird and a possible imitator.
President Boyd K. Packer warned, "You should know also that, in addition to static and interference which jam the circuits, there are counterfeit signals. Some have received revelations and heard voices that are put there deliberately by wicked sources to lead astray. You can learn to recognize those and tune them out, if you will. Now, how do you tell the difference? How can you know if a prompting is an inspiration or a temptation? My answer to that must surely expose my great confidence in young people. I believe young people, when properly taught, are basically sensible. In the Church we are not exempt from common sense. You can know to begin with that you won't be prompted from any righteous source to steal, to lie, to cheat, to join anyone in any kind of moral transgression...[Your conscience] will prompt you to know the things that are wrong. Don't smother it...If ever you are confused and feel that you are being misled, go for counsel to your parents, and to your leaders."[15]
I suspect we sometimes may be confused because the Spirit's voice often touches our emotions--sometimes very powerfully. However, not all strongly felt emotions are the voice of the Spirit. Sometimes our fears, our excitement, our pride, our greed, our feelings of infatuation may be construed as promptings of the Spirit.
I once interviewed a young woman who reported that during the week three young men independently told her that their prayers were answered and they were "instructed by the Spirit" to tell her that she was to be their wife! Having heard the Spirit's voice in the matter, there was little for her to do but to marry the young man--or so claimed each of the three. Now, she was a very talented, capable and attractive young woman and would have undoubtedly made a wonderful wife for any number of young men. But did these young men hear the voice of the Spirit or the voice of their own emotions?
One test for sorting this out, as President Packer suggested, is to ask the question, "Is the prompting I feel in keeping with eternal principles?" Here the principle of free agency comes to mind. Would the Spirit give direction to one person that takes the agency away from another person? Perhaps the Spirit did confirm that this was a worthy young woman who would make a good wife. But then each of the three young men attached his own "therefore." "Therefore you must marry me." With experience and the application of common sense, we can learn to sort out the voice of the Spirit from our emotions.
Guideline 8: Avoid Boasting about Spiritual Matters.
I don't believe the Lord is pleased when we boast about our spiritual promptings or share them inappropriately. Have you ever noticed that the people who are closest to the Spirit are not those who speak openly or boast about it? To them, receiving revelation in their personal lives is a sacred trust that, if boasted of or talked of inappropriately, will cause the Spirit to withdraw. I have heard some members--often innocently--say, "The Spirit told me this," or "The Spirit told me that." When one truly hears the voice of the Spirit, the person recognizes this is sacred communication that is not to be shared lightly. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Mary, the mother of the Savior, who, rather than boasting of her remarkable experiences, "...kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart."[16]
Guideline 9: Recognize that Sometimes the Answer is "No" or "Not What I Wanted"
Many times, Heavenly Father chooses NOT to answer our prayers or He gives us an answer that is at variance with what we expected. Elder Richard G. Scott explained: "Often He withholds an answer, not for lack of concern, but because He loves us--perfectly. He wants us to apply truths He has given us. For us to grow, we need to trust our ability to make correct decisions. We need to do what we feel is right."[17] If He were to answer every prayer, remove every pain, cure every illness, forestall every death, and make every decision for us, He would thwart the very purpose of our existence.
Some answers come only after years of significant effort and struggle. Some we may not be ready to receive until we've matured and attained more experience in the kingdom. Sometimes when we feel we have not been answered we realize we already received the answer but did not recognize it.
And sometimes the answer comes in a form we did not expect. I remember asking for a witness confirming whom I was to marry. I assumed that such an eternally important decision would require a "significant" spiritual experience. I prayed very hard, I fasted, I considered all the pros and cons. To my surprise, I felt inspiration come--but not in the form I had desired. I remember the distinct feeling in my heart, "Whose wife is she going to be?" "Ah, mine." "Then it is your responsibility to make the choice!" When I accepted that answer, I felt the peaceful assurance that if I were making a serious mistake, the promptings from the Spirit would come. I also learned that a big part of life is making a decision and then, with the Lord's help, making that decision the right decision. I am pleased to report that our 40 years of marriage have worked out wonderfully well for both of us.
Testimony
I recently visited an eight-year-old granddaughter on her birthday. I handed her a gift package containing the standard works that my wife and I customarily give our grandchildren on that particular birthday. As you can well picture, it took only a few micro-seconds for Mary to eagerly rip the paper from the package, extract the gift and show it her parents and siblings. Yet are there some of us, having received the precious Gift of the Holy Ghost at baptism, who leave the gift essentially unopened and unused because we fail to learn to listen to the still, small voice?
I testify that Heavenly Father desires us to much more frequently enjoy the voice of the Spirit in our lives--we but need to qualify ourselves. I hope these nine guidelines may help us improve our ability to tune out the many sounds that compete for our attention and tune in the still, small voice of the Spirit. How vitally important that voice is as you and I make pivotal decisions in our lives--especially during these formative years.
It is through that still, small voice of the Spirit that I can testify to you that God lives, that He deeply loves us. The voice of His Spirit--the Holy Ghost--is real and He can assist us in finding peace in our hearts, in knowing the truthfulness of His Gospel, in making crucial decisions, in rendering effective service, and in ultimately returning to our Father. I testify that His prophets and apostles are upon the earth--and that President Thomas S. Monson is His prophet today. I testify that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, that the Book of Mormon is true, that families can be forever, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and our Savior and Redeemer. May you and I qualify to enjoy more often the sweet, comforting promptings of the Spirit.
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] John 14:26
[2] President Boyd K. Packer, "Prayers and Answers," Ensign, Nov 1979, 19
[3] Henry B. Eyring, "To Draw Closer to God," Ensign, May 1991, 65
[4] Hel. 5:30
[5] D&C 9:8
[6] James E. Faust, "Communion with the Holy Spirit," Ensign, Mar 2002, 2-7
[7] Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Harold B. Lee (2000), "To Hear the Voice of the Lord," 47-52
[8] 1 Ne. 17:45
[9] Enos 1:3
[10] Moses 1:1
[11] Boyd K. Packer, "Teach the Children," Liahona, May 2000, 14
[12] History of the Church 3:381
[13] Mosiah 2:17
[14] David A. Bednar, "Because We Have Them before Our Eyes," Liahona, Apr 2006, 16-21
[15] President Boyd K. Packer, "Prayers and Answers," Ensign, Nov 1979, 19
[16] Luke 2:19
[17] Richard G. Scott, "Learning to Recognize Answers to Prayer," Ensign, Nov 1989, 30