The Father's Words

December is a busy time of year and this post may be all that I get around to writing. The thoughts simmer in my heart but taking them out and organizing them on paper is an extra step. I also think we need to honor the prophets who wrote down the spiritual insights they had with God. It would make more sense to just benefit personally from a spiritual experience and not bother with sharing the experience with others. The act of recording these experiences was a major sacrifice especially if the mode of writing was more of an engravers art. That being said, I want to share with you a prophet’s words where he directly quotes God the Father. There are very few times where the Father speaks. The most memorable might be, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him.” (Matt 17:5, variation in 2 Pet 1:17)

Divine Mentoring

“I remember once a seven- or eight-year-old son of ours jumping on his bed hard enough that I thought it might break. I felt a flash of frustration, and I moved quickly to set my house in order. I grabbed my son by his little shoulders and lifted him up to where our eyes met.

“The Spirit put words into my mind. It seemed a quiet voice, but it pierced to my heart: “You are holding a great person.” I gently set him back on the bed and apologized.

“Now he has become the great man the Holy Ghost let me see 40 years ago. I am eternally grateful that the Lord rescued me from my unkind feelings by sending the Holy Ghost to let me see a child of God as He saw him.” (Source: Eyring, “My Peace I Leave with You.”)

In this story, the Holy Ghost mentored a father in the very moment when he was about to discipline his child, showing him the great worth of the child in God’s eyes. The Holy Ghost is the vehicle by which God offers us divine mentoring in our life.

The Author of Salvation

Jesus Christ introduced the sacrament of bread and wine/water at the Last Supper in preparation for his great atoning gift to the world.

In the sacrament he gave two great symbolic elements, bread and water, to help the people understand his gift. The bread was likely unleavened because the Last Supper was a Passover meal. Because unleavened bread does not have yeast, it has less moisture and is less prone to decay. The bread represented the purity of Christ’s body and the incorruptibility of his gift.

The Israelites ate manna in the wilderness with Moses. The manna was a gift from God at a time when other food was not available. This taught them to depend physically on God before introducing the idea of relying spiritually on God. When Christ came he expanded the metaphor of manna when he said, “This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live for ever.” (John 6:58) Christ was the bread from heaven. He was the epitome of the symbol from the Old Testament.

The sacrament at the Last Supper used wine but water has been used interchangeably for this symbol. Christ declared, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:14) The water is a symbol of the blood which Christ was about to give in his atoning gift to the world.

Christ was the lamb of God. His death was a fulfillment of a symbolic ritual of animal sacrifice in the Old Testament where a lamb was sacrificed for the sins of the people. (see 1 Pet 1:18-19) “In Leviticus the sacrificial offerings for sin fall into two categories, those designed to atone for unintentional transgressions and those that atoned for willful sins.” (Stephen Ricks, Source) Under the law of Moses unintentional sins were paid for by the transgressor himself. Willful sins cannot be redeemed by the transgressor and require an intercessor. Intercession by Christ on our behalf is necessary because no unclean thing can dwell with God and all of us are unclean due to our intentional sinning. 

While observing the Mosaic law of sacrifice, as we understand now from Christ’s own teachings, was not fully effective in perfecting the people.  It was part of the author’s plan to show his people where to look for their salvation. Jesus Christ, the author of salvation, uses imagery, symbolism and poetic words to explain his great gift. The gift of salvation has much deeper levels of meaning which are understood after we participate in and ponder the physical representations of bread and water, lambs and sacrifice, the cross and the garden.

In the garden and on the cross, Jesus Christ experienced personally and individually every pain and sorrow from every sin committed and all it’s repercussion for each and every person who has lived on earth before and after his life on earth. Peter thought Jesus should flee the evil men who wanted to kill him. Jesus knew that the pain was necessary. He said to his Father, “O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” (Matt 26:42) He showed perfect submission to the will of God in the way that we all must submit both to God’s laws and to his punishments. During this time of intercession, the pain caused Jesus Christ to sweat drops of blood from every pore. (Luke 22:44) The blood sanctified us his people.

If we are sanctified by his blood, why must we appeal to him via repentance to have mercy on us? Jesus Christ became the one to hold the key of salvation because he broke the confining bands of death and sin. Only through him can we be saved. This means that he sets the terms and conditions of the salvation that he offers. 

Because Christ is the author of the terms and conditions, we have no right to demand his grace. As we submit to his authority and guidance, we begin to understand what our role is in turning away from sin and what his role is in finishing our faith. The first condition of salvation is baptism by an authorized servant of God. John the apostle taught, “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” (John 3:5) Being born of water is baptism. Being born of the Spirit is a process of sanctification that must occur during this mortal life through the obedience and direction of God’s emissary, the Holy Spirit. The remaining terms and conditions are spelled out in scripture and in the divine tutelage that the Spirit gives. 

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What does it mean to FEEL the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Godhead. His role is to testify of God and Christ and to share with us messages of love and comfort from them. Feeling the Spirit is a spiritual feeling not a physical one.

Have you ever had a stomach ache from the flu or food poisoning? That is a physical feeling. Have you ever felt “sick” in someone’s presence or “sick” of doing something hard or unsettled about a future event or butterflies in your stomach when you’re afraid of going on stage.  These are various “spiritual” feelings. Feeling the Spirit is a feeling that comes to you when you are quiet, introspective and open to ideas.

Realizing Our Divine Potential

We are imperfect human beings living in a mortal world as designed by our Heavenly Father in his perfect plan for our eternal progression. Before birth we lived as spirit sons and daughters with our Father in Heaven. At the designated time, we are born here with a blank slate to parents who ideally provide protection, education and support as we grow. By the time we reach adulthood, we have the mental capacity to make choices of our own and be responsible for the consequences. As our mortal life ends we pass through death and enter the world of spirits where we await our designated time to report on our mortal life. Some time afterwards our Father in Heaven will reward us with a perfected, resurrected physical body as well as a home where we will continue to live as eternal beings. This is part of the perfect plan.

The Holy Spirit of God

This post is about what the Holy Spirit feels like to me.  It is a description of my experience.  I hope to inspire you to study this topic and come to know what it feels like for yourself.

The Spirit Feels Like Joy

When I make a decision and it happens to be the right one, the Holy Spirit sometimes feels my heart with joy.  When I’m about to make the wrong decision, the Holy Spirit sometimes puts a sinking feeling in my heart or an unexplainable anxiety.

The Spirit Feels Like Love

When I serve someone with no thought of reward, sometimes the Holy Spirit fills my heart with God’s love.  Once I taught a Sunday school lesson to teens and at the end I told each student I loved them as they went out the door.  That day I felt more love for them because I extended myself beyond my comfort zone and said that particular phrase.

The Spirit Feels Like Peace

In sacred places, the Holy Spirit’s presence is peaceful.  I also feel peace when the Spirit is telling me “good job.”

The Spirit Fills My Heart with Patience

Sometimes I want things done quickly.  I’m a fast mover.  I fret about things when the process takes longer than I would like.  As I step back and exercise faith in God’s timing, the Holy Spirit gives me a patience that doesn’t come naturally to me.

The Spirit Interacts More With Me When I am Meek

The ability to listen, accept guidance, let go of expectations, change — all these things work well when looking for and feeling the Spirit.  I feel the Spirit more when I’m not certain and I’m looking for direction.

The Spirit Feels Gentle

When the Spirit corrects me, I feel He is gentle — unless I’ve already made my choice and it’s the wrong one.  Unlike humans, the Spirit is not loud, critical, angry, insulting or harsh.  The Spirit  helps me to see where I have made a mistake while I still have a chance to fix it.  His corrections are often barely perceptible but if I listen I can change course easily.

The Spirit Feels like faith

When I have a sense that the Holy Spirit is with me, I am filled with faith.  Doubt doesn’t come from the Spirit.  Sometimes I take a small step in the wrong direction.  I feel it.  I try not to take big steps without some kind of confirmation.

The Spirit Gives Me Hope

When a trial is going on and the end is not in sight, sometimes the Spirit gives me hope to hang in there.  Sometimes I sense that the Spirit sent a person who has hope to stand beside me.

The Spirit Feels Like Power and Authority

Strong impressions from the Holy Spirit are rare, but when they include a confrontation with evil they feel powerful.

The Spirit Feels Like the Rushing of Mighty Waters

Once I had a spiritual experience while reading Psalms 18 that I attribute to the Holy Spirit.  It felt like an overflowing rush of water as in a waterfall.

The Spirit Manifests like an Idea in a Dark Room

Situations can get particularly troubling and when I ask the Lord for help, sometimes he responds by giving me a new idea that I’ve never had before.  I believe that the Lord speaks to my mind through the medium of the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit Feels Like Growth

The way a seed swells before it grows is similar to how my heart feels when I feel the Spirit.  One time the seed of “Abiding in the Lord” was planted in my heart.  I didn’t understand it at the time.  Later it began to grow and I felt the truth of the idea.  I think the sense that something is true and that I am growing in my understanding of it comes from the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit Sometimes Presses

When the Holy Spirit wants me to do something that I wasn’t planning on doing, I sometimes feel a sense of pressing from a thought or feeling.  Once I kept getting an old widow’s name in my head.  I decided to stop in and see her.  When I got there, she was grateful because she had asked the Lord to send me.

The Spirit Constrains

This is like being pressed above but it is the sense of the word “no” in my head.  I find that these kinds of impressions are usually urgent.  While this type of impression is maybe the easiest to discern, it isn’t the most common.  The Lord expects us to make choices based on our knowledge and understanding without always giving us specific instructions like “no.”  

The Spirit Brings Things Back into Our Memory

This works very well for students who study and prepare for tests on Monday but don’t study on the Sabbath Day.  I’ve also had this happen while studying the scriptures.  The Holy Spirit will use a verse to bring to mind another verse and if I follow the impression I often get a train of new ideas.

The Spirit Teaches

Once I made a choice to sacrifice some of my personal time to go and help to janitorial duties at the church building.  The Spirit rewarded me by teaching me something new on a subject I was pondering.

The Spirit Edifies Gospel Instruction

During a Sunday school lesson I sometimes learn something altogether startling while teaching what I have prepared.  The students are also eligible to receive spiritual insights while being taught if they are aware and open to it.

The Spirit Guides

Sometimes I receive a prompting which leads me to make a discovery and maybe find more along the same line.  This is more subtle than an experience where the Spirit teaches me something directly.

“For the Holy Ghost to be fully operating” in our lives, Ezra T. Benson said, “we must keep our channels clear of sin.” 

He warned, “If our channels are  not clear of sin, then we may think we have received inspiration on a matter when it is really promptings from the devil.”

  Source

Verses for Further Study:

Romans 15:13, Galatians 5:22–23, 1 Corinthians 2:9–11, John 14:26, John 14:27, John 16:13, Luke 12:11–12, John 16:8, John 15:26, Exodus 31:3–5, D&C 50:13–22, John 14:26

Image source: Flickr/ Hickory Hardscrabble

In Affliction - Faith is Strength

This is Part 4 in a series

In this post - comfort zones - refiner's fire - diamonds - marathons

In hard times, faith is what we use to keep going, to get up and try again and to begin anew.

Life isn’t easy.  The challenges we face and overcome teach us and force us to rethink our strategies.  I like these verses in Isaiah 30:21-22

20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers:
21 And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.

To me these verses say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.  And, when the student is humble, the Holy Spirit is able to direct him or her.  Having both a teacher and the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my life indicates that I am going to make it to the next level.  I can only stay stuck if I ignore them.

The Refiner's Fire

Hard times make us wince.   They jostle us out of our comfort zone.  The Bible talks about trials as a refiner’s fire.  The impurities or dross rise up when exposed to heat and are discarded.  So, when the heat is on, we see our weaknesses more clearly.  In our reaction to life’s experiences, we find out where the dross is and how much has to go.  We choose to let go of the bad.  Eventually, we have the best character traits to keep and the worst are gone.  

Life has to be lived in order for Christ’s redemption to be needed and valued when it is received.

An example from the natural world: is found in diamonds, a crystalline form of Carbon.  The crystal is stable at pressures deep in the earth.  If it is pushed by geologic forces slowly to the surface it turns to graphite, a soft mineral used in pencils.  If it is violently ejected to the earth's surface we get to keep the gemstone.  The high pressures and strong forces produce the environment necessary for carbon atoms to be diamonds.  Our souls are being put under strong forces in this mortal existence because the environment produces "diamonds."  Click here to see an image comparing souls to diamonds. 

The same pattern is found in sports like running.  It is only necessary to run for 20 minutes a day to get the benefits of exercise.  But there is a deeper soul benefit to running a marathon because of the effort required to endure such a "high pressure" event for so many miles.