Catching the Canary - Willing to Receive

In his Sunday Morning April 2017 General Conference talk, Let the Holy Spirit Guide, Elder Ronald A. Rasband gave us four pieces of advice regarding the Holy Spirit:

First, we strive to live worthy of the Spirit. ...

Second, we must be willing to receive the Spirit. ...

Third, we must recognize the Spirit when it comes. ...

Fourth, we must act on the first prompting.

Each of these tips deserve blog posts of their own, though some of them are self-explanatory or have been discussed to death in previous blog posts. The first tip in particular has been covered more times than I can count. We all know that we must be righteous, or at least repentant, to keep the Holy Spirit with us. What stands out most to me among these four tips is that we must also be welcoming.

I believe that a relationship with the Holy Ghost can only exist by mutual consent. The Holy Ghost doesn't stick around when He doesn't want to, but He also doesn't stick around when we don't want Him to. Similar to another spirit I should blog about sometime, if we push the Holy Ghost away, He will leave. Thus, it's important for us not to push Him away. Instead, we should make a conscious effort to welcome Him and His advice. While we must maintain our worthiness to ensure the Holy Ghost's willingness to remain with us, we must also maintain our willingness to receive Him.

As with the issue of worthiness, it can be difficult to maintain a willingness to be led by the Spirit. The natural man within each of us doesn't take kindly to criticism, even when it's as gentle and constructive as the Holy Ghost's guidance often is. The natural man doesn't want to change, and it certainly doesn't want a pesky spirit constantly reminding it that it needs to change, so we need to want those reminders instead. We need to want to become better people, and we need to invite the Spirit to help us learn how we can do that. Without that invitation, the Holy Ghost may, respectfully, leave us alone. And it is NOT a smart idea for us to try to face the challenges of life alone. We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and He doesn't stick around long where He isn't wanted. So, if we want the Holy Ghost to remain with us, we have to really want it.