On the subject of the Holy Ghost's limited abilities, I couldn't help noticing that He can't help anyone that doesn't listen to Him. I said yesterday that the Holy Ghost is often not much more than a voice in someone's head or a feeling in their heart. All that one would need to do to completely shut the Spirit out of their lives is to ignore that voice and that feeling, and since the Spirit is almost always quiet and gentle, ignoring it isn't much of a challenge. And here's the scary part; the more a person ignores the Spirit, the weaker the Spirit's influence on that person becomes, until eventually they may reach the point where they can't feel the Spirit's influence at all. That, if I'm not mistaken, is what Nephi meant in 1 Nephi 17: 45 when he described his brothers as being "past feeling."
But villains aren't the only ones who don't hear and hearken to the voice of the Spirit. We are occasionally told that we need to "tune in" to the Spirit, and that it's sometimes a challenge to hear His voice, even to those who try. It's a lot easier for us to not hear Him than to hear Him. It's a lot easier to not listen to Him than it is to listen to Him, understand His counsel, and follow it. I'm not trying to justify not listening to the Spirit. What I'm trying to do is point out that following the Spirit is easier said than done, to illustrate the point that the Spirit's influence is shockingly limited, even to those who are trying to follow that influence. Even faithful people occasionally ignore a prompting because they didn't recognize it, or misinterpret the feeling and go the wrong way, or fail to follow a prompting because they lacked the courage to do so. Not that it's "okay," but it's understandable.
The ease with which one can ignore the Spirit, even by accident, makes it important to try to seek the Spirit and strive to follow Him. The Spirit's influence is often so faint that it takes effort to feel it. We can seek the Spirit through prayer, scripture study, and other acts similar to meditation; going to places where the Spirit tends to be, such as temples, at worship services, and out in nature; and by making attempts to act as the Spirit would prompt you to act by keeping the commandments, developing Christlike attributes, and by trying to follow the promptings of the Spirit.
It must be pretty frustrating to Him that the only thing He can really do is communicate, and so often what He says falls on deaf ears. He tries to help us, and all mankind, but He can only succeed so far as we let Him. Thinking about Him from this perspective, I can't help feeling sorry for Him. It makes me want to help Him guide me, to actually listen to Him (as much as I can), and to try to act in such a way that would allow Him to remain with me. I know it won't be easy, for reasons listed above, but He's trying to make it work. So should I.
No comments:
Post a Comment