Personal Revelation is…

…personal.


This is a Sacrament Meeting talk I gave in the 76th Ward in April 2019. Phillip needed a companion speaker and he asked me. It was an honor and a privilege.

Posting this feels a lot more vulnerable than speaking to an entire congregation, but if we don't practice vulnerability, then we will never learn what it looks like and feels like for us.

I am grateful to be here, though I do wish you were all under 12 or I was singing, then my confidence would wax strong.

The two main points I want to make today are:

1)Personal revelation is PERSONAL. It’s between me and God. He wants to provide me with what I need.

2)Personal revelation is PERSONAL. It will not look like anyone else’s and that is God’s intent. There is no room for comparison in personal revelation.

Too often we wait for the beautifully crafted General Conference quotes created by well intended saints that are plastered all over Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Those quotes, though effective and true, might not be what you personally need. They might not be the revelation that God has in store for you. Just like with faith and testimony, we cannot and should not rely on the revelation of others to build our, personal spiritual foundation.

Of course we need help and guidance and ideas and starting points from others. We are each here on this earth to share with one another how we feel and what we know. We want to encourage each other and have our hearts connect on a spiritual level. That feels right, and increases our strength. Those are really great places to start. But we need to develop revelation that is personal to us.

Back to General Conference ---- To find the personal revelation that I seek, I have a goal to re-read each general conference talk and take the time to search for the pieces of personal revelation that I need in my life. The pieces I choose are going to be different than yours. This goal can take as long as I need and I can repeat it as often as I need. I might try searching for a specific theme, idea, or topic that is weighing on my mind and heart. 

For me, right now - that would be prayer. What I need to learn and know about prayer — is not what you need to know about prayer right now. I need to learn, feel, and connect with God through prayer, but I need help getting there.

You might be confident and comfortable with how, when, and where you pray. You might already know and be able to communicate with our Heavenly Parents in a way that you can feel their love and in a way that you can feel the strength of our Savior as you close a prayer in his name. I’m not there yet. 

I have a difficult time connecting with the traditional method of prayer. It feels forced and formal and that if I don’t do it exactly right, then it’s not going to work. That belief has nothing to do with my faith, obedience, righteousness or desire. I have finally stopped beating myself up for struggling so much with it and constantly comparing myself with others and how they feel about prayer. I get to use my agency and learn how to pray in a way that I can feel God’s love for me. I’m looking for personal revelation about prayer.

I have a constant prayer in my heart. I like to call them heart whispers. I have a deal with God that he KNOWS that I am listening as much as I’m able for His guidance and help — though my knees never hit the floor and my arms seldom fold in the traditional sense, and I am not able to enter any secret closets. 

I have been earnestly looking for guidance and personal revelation to better understand the power of prayer. I found it in the most unexpected place. 

Jan, a friend not of our faith, said a prayer via text that was incredibly heartfelt and humble. I KNEW that God heard every word she wrote. I could feel it in my soul. Every word was directly from her heart and that prayer spoke to my spirit in a way that I am eternally grateful for.

This is what she typed:

Heavenly Father - we are all beautiful works in progress. Today I ask that you show each of my survivor sisters a beautiful piece of themselves that might have been hidden by our fears and sadness. Lord these women are brave and strong beyond words. I ask that you bless each one of them with peace beyond measure. In Your Holy and precious name. Amen.

I needed that prayer that day. I have never had the experience of someone (other than myself) pray especially for me. That experience changed how I viewed prayer. She made it personal. She made it heartfelt. She made it mean something. It was humble and meek and full of all the love she had for me and the other women she was praying for.

God told me through personal revelation that the sweet simplicity of that prayer was what I was so desperately searching for. It also told me that I needed to practice that kind of genuine prayer that had no formality, or form, but was filled will love and a desire to communicate with my Heavenly Parents. So I practiced. These same women were struggling on a different day many weeks later and I prayed for them in our text thread. For the first time in a long while, I was able to feel that God heard my prayer and that he was proud of my learning, my efforts, and putting my personal revelation into play.

The beauty of the new Come Follow Me study guide is that it’s all about personal revelation. It never tells me what I should learn, or what I am “supposed” to learn, but it gives me guidance and ideas and this allows me to use my agency to find what I need right now. It specifically states at the beginning of each week - RECORD YOUR IMPRESSIONS. What a gift that is! What a privilege it is to use my agency to search for and then choose the teaching from the scriptures that I need right now — that is my personal revelation.

For these last two weeks the Come Follow Me theme was “Thou Art the Christ”. As I glance through the specific topics I can use my desire for personal revelation to guide me to what is most important for me right now. 

1- A Testimony of Jesus Christ comes by Revelation — that is important to me as I rebuild my spirituality tower with Jesus Christ being the foundation.

2-What happened on the Mount of Transfiguration? I’m sure that’s important, but I honestly don’t care right now. And my agency allows that to be ok for me.

3-What are the “keys of the kingdom of heaven”? Meh — I don’t need that right now either — but you might and that’s ok — the gift of agency. 

4-“When seeking greater faith, I must first hold on to the faith I already have.” THIS — This is what I’m looking for to rebuild my spiritual tower, to figure out where faith fits in that tower and how I need to use it. I need personal revelation on faith.

Personal revelation is PERSONAL.

Circling back to General Conference, in April 2018, President Nelson, gave a talk on revelation and I read through it yesterday --- and with this talk in mind, choose a few pieces of personal revelation that I need today, right now, this week.This is what I found:

1)Choose to do the spiritual work required to enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost.

2)The privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children. 

3)Imagine the miracle of it! ------ In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen