Continuing Guidance

I skipped over President Eyring's Priesthood Session talk, but I won't skip his Sunday Morning talk, Continuing Revelation. Looking over this talk, one paragraph toward the beginning of the talk stands out from the others. It's quoted from in large letters above the talk itself, and it, and the two paragraphs that follow it, are used for the brief video highlight of the talk. It must be important.

We all know that human judgement and logical thinking will not be enough to get answers to the questions that matter most in life. We need revelation from God. And we will need not just one revelation in a time of stress, but we need a constantly renewed stream. We need not just one flash of light and comfort, but we need the continuing blessing of communication with God.

The very existence of the Church stems from a young boy knowing that was true. Young Joseph Smith knew that he could not of himself know which church to join. So he asked of God, as the book of James told him he could. God the Father and His Beloved Son appeared in a grove of trees. They answered the question that was beyond Joseph’s power to resolve.

Not only was he then called of God to establish the true Church of Jesus Christ, but with it was restored the power to invoke the Holy Ghost so that revelation from God could be continuous.

A frequent theme of this blog is a reminder of how much we need God's help, especially for guidance. God is the man with the plan, and we, who would do well to follow that plan, often have no idea what that plan is. To learn God's plan and specifically, our place in it, we need revelation. Many revelations containing general instructions have been written in the holy scriptures, and our current prophet receives revelation that's especially applicable for the church today. Patriarchs can give us special blessings that can shed some light on God's main purpose for our lives, but for specific direction, we have to get it ourselves.

Personal Revelation comes through the Spirit, and it often comes when we study the words of ancient and modern prophets and our patriarchal blessings and as we pray and fast for personal guidance. The revelations that come in those times are usually given in answer to big, important questions, but just as important is the guidance we can get from the Spirit every day. We frequently make decisions that have a small impact on our lives. Over time, the impact of those decisions get bigger and bigger. To make the majority of them correctly, we often need continual guidance, which means that we need to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.

It can be hard to always be worthy to have the Spirit with you to guide you. It takes regular effort to read the scriptures and pray to God, and it takes a continual effort to listen to the Spirit and to avoid the things that offend Him. In comparison, it's much easier to just listen to the Prophets in General Conference than to listen to the Spirit all the time, but to get the continual, personal guidance we need to follow God's path, we need to put forth the effort. We can have a "constantly renewed stream" of revelation to guide us, and that's fortunate, because in order to make the right decisions in our daily lives, we could really use that kind of guidance.