Hey there everybody, welcome back. It's time for another podcast of Redeemed Through His Blood. How are you, Dave? I'm good, Scott. Good. I'm good. How are you doing? Life, the foibles of life, Scott. Yesterday I picked up my car from getting a windshield replaced. Right? And these new cars, they have to be calibrated. Oh yeah. I don't know, it's like a thousand dollars. Uh, anyway.
I get the windshield replaced, picked the car up at 9am, I'm coming home from Salt Lake, little date my wife and I went on yesterday afternoon. It's about four or five o'clock. And I hear this ping. On the windshield. And a big crack in the windshield. Oh my goodness. I'm sorry. You just had a string of bad luck. Last week you had the bad luck of finding out the fruit loops. That's a fruit loops. Yeah. Which still crushes me. I almost bought you a box of those yesterday when I set the garage.
Can you believe that, Scott? I had that car like six hours, six or seven hours. And now you have it. With a crack free windshield. And now it's got another crack in it. So my question is this, if it's a thousand dollars, how come they can't come up with a crack, a windshield that won't crack? I don't know. I actually went back to the place this morning early because I thought, I just need them to know. I don't know. I need some reassurance. Is there maybe a 24 hour guarantee?
Yeah. Yeah. Is there something they can do about cracks? I mean, it's not clear across the windshield. Not yet. Not yet. Well, it's about two feet long. And it's going to be right. It's going to be. So I wanted to know, is there something they can do? Is there something? Anyway, they could not believe it. They just said, oh, you know, anyway, they were colorful in their language. They couldn't believe it. And I just said, well, are the windshields are good, right?
I mean, it's just a little ping and I got there. Anyway, the foibles and they, I was, I was kind of saying, can you believe that you guys? And they said, oh man, if I was you, I'd be so mad. And I said, well, you know, what can I do about it? I don't have any control over this and stay off the freeway. And I said, yeah, like I'm going to stay out the freeway. Life is isn't that interesting really? Life is.
Yeah. I mean, really in the, I know that's a small thing in the overall scheme of things, but I was just thinking, wow, what is up with that? That's crazy. I'm kind of dumbfounded. I don't even know what to say to that. I do need to. That's just bad luck. Yeah. Well, actually, the windshield that I replaced had been actually broken by a rather large rock up in the corner of it. And we had, we had kind of just intentionally, let's see how far we can go with this.
And we didn't get replaced for like months. Yeah. I mean, I lived with that for months. You should have gone another month, buddy. I should have gone one more month, one more day. That's all it would have taken. I mean, the first thought went through my mind, why did I get it replaced the day? Or actually they'd replaced it the day before, but I picked it up that morning. Right. Anyway, so life, the turns and foibles of life. Unbelievable. So I hope that our listeners are doing well.
I hope you're doing well. Yeah, we are. We're doing well. Devin, I celebrated a wedding anniversary yesterday. It was amazing. Nice. Yeah, we have had, you know, we've only been married 21 years. I say it like it's less than two decades. It's 21 years. I mean, and that's kind of a big deal, you know, but that's not very long for our old year. That's exactly what I was going to say. And I knew you would. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. You had to do it. No, yeah, you did.
But you know, it's been 21 years of, you know, it's really amazing when you're married. You've had this experience, your entire marriage. You know, I didn't have this experience in the beginning of my experiences of being married. Okay. Yeah. But it's just amazing. And you know, and I know that Deb feels the same way.
It's just when you're married to the right person and you have the same goals and outlook on life and the same spiritual quest and the same desire to kneel each night and pray and to attend the temple. It's just amazing. The difference. It's not easy. No, we have, we're not, we're not problem free. And it may not be every night that you both want to kneel down, but no, but you, you try to and you probably do. And maybe some nights you don't, but, but it's not easy.
But really, I know what you're saying, Scott. There is something about that, that you have this certain security and confidence in life and in your eternal quest and future and purpose that you just, it just, it's really sweet. Yeah. There's just nothing like it. And we both have just enjoyed the last 21 years. We look forward to the next 21 years. 21 years. Yeah, I'll still be here maybe.
I wish everyone could, could understand that when it comes to marriage and relationships in, within marriage, that the highest, highest, holiest level of intimacy is spiritual. It's spiritual. It's not physical. If you, you know, it's a spiritual connection.
Yeah. That you have this, you know, the peace that's beyond understanding that you have when you're with one another and when you can share spiritual experiences with one another, spiritual insights, personal revelation, and you know that it's going to be sacred to your spouse, to your partner and that you can share those things and talk about those things freely. Wow. That, that is so binding and sacred in a relationship. It's quite a gift. There's no question.
And it, and it kind of baffles me, you know, and maybe it's because of my perspective, but it kind of baffles me that actually it is because of my experience, because I didn't take it too serious, you know, in the beginning, when I, in my first marriage, I've been married more than twice. And so in my first marriages, I didn't. Well, that would be three times. Well, we can continue this conversation from here. Okay. But. You can cut that. Yeah. I think I probably will.
But I, but, but you know, to have, to just have that togetherness, you know, and to know that, you know, if I need help, if I need support, like you said, that spiritual intimacy, and so often in that spiritual intimacy, there's not even a lot of words that need to be spoken sometimes. Yeah. You know, right. When we sit in the temple in the, in the, in the celestial room of the temple and we just hold hands, there's a communication or a communion that's not just between me and her.
Yeah. That's between me and her and Heavenly Father. Yeah. Through the spirit of the Holy Ghost. I tell you, you know, there's just that there's just no gift this greater than that gift to me so far. Yeah. I, I, I agree, Scott. I pray that our family members and listeners and others can, and you know, if they're not in the habit or they haven't had those experience, those spiritual intimate moments where they can have gospel discussion.
Yeah. Sometimes if that doesn't come naturally, then they need, they need to kind of program it until it becomes natural. I think it would be awesome if, if families and couples would just, especially couples and, and families, but, but don't leave if you have a family discussion about come follow me. I don't think I should replace a couple's experience discussing come follow me.
And the way my wife and I love to do come follow me is that when she reads it and she, she loves to do it just personally, individually on her own and she goes through it and she, she, she does, puts in the effort and she answers some of the questions and goes through the book. Then we discuss it. I just think couples need to be having that discussion. You know, they need to be counseling together in love about the, the holy scriptures and about the teachings of the prophets.
And when they, when they do that, that, as that becomes more and more of a habit and more natural with them, their relationships will become so much sweeter. Yeah. There's stronger. I agree with that. And as, as we do that, it's interesting how so many answers to our questions and our problems that I have alone have been able to not get a handle on or get a grip on or, or get answers to.
But when we have these conversations and then we have the spirit flowing through both of us in that, in our covenantal relationship, we have a covenantal relationship with each other too. You know, that's bound, that's bound together by the Holy Spirit of the promise. I think we're going to be talking about that a little later in our episode today. But you know, as that happens in, as we have that spirit, it's just amazing how, you know, one plus one does not equal two in this case.
You know, it's exponentially greater than that with, and this is important. This is the key with the, with the companionship of the spirit. Right. Yeah. Well, and I think it really creates trust. And I, I don't know of anything, any attribute that is more important in a relationship than, than trust. And according to some studies that have been done, the most important attributes in a relationship are acceptance, unconditional love and trust.
Those, those three attributes in a relationship, according to surveys in, I'm talking about, not just in the church, I'm just secular, secular surveys and studies that have been done, unconditional acceptance, love and trust are so critical, maybe the most important issues and attributes in a relationship and having intimate spiritual discussion and drawing closer to the Holy Ghost and to the Savior, to our Heavenly Father builds all three of those.
Acceptance, unconditional love and trust and you know, you know why I think those things are so important. I believe that those things are so important because, because those three things, what they do is they provide a sense of safety. Yeah, right. That safety, you know, that they provide a sense of safety in your relationship. And when we feel safe, that's right, Scott. You know, there's just very, and that doesn't mean we don't weather storms. We do. Right.
We do have those storms right now and some of those have to do with kids and grandkids and other things like that, you know, and, and as we weather those storms with those three things, like you said, acceptance of each other, unconditional love towards each other and total trust in each other and to build that trust by continuing to do the things that build that trust. Then I feel safe and so does she. Right.
Yeah. And, and safety is really so important in a relationship because when you go through those storms, if you don't feel safe, that's, that's when the cracks develop and people run and, and you make crazy decisions or yeah. I mean, we've been through some really tense moments you have to with your family. I've been through some really intense moments, sending a son to prison and, and things like that.
And, you know, so many times driving down the road, you know, maybe, maybe crying and uh, you know, speaking through our pain together, it comes down to well, as long as we've got each other. Right. And that as long as we got each other, we can, we can do this. And there's just nothing more beautiful than that. All of this stuff really comes down to a relationship.
And, and we talked from the very beginning of the podcast, David, how important relationships are and the last, the last month actually or so, one of those relationships we've been focusing on is our, is our relationship with the Holy Ghost. And you know, we talked to last week is kind of a culmination. The first two, two weeks prior to that, we talked about the Holy Ghost.
Last week we talked about the Holy Ghost in, in that, you know, we talked about the importance of personal revelation and having revelation in our lives. We talked about a few steps that you gave us of seven. Seven keys, seven keys, not steps, personal revelation. And I think today as we continue that conversation is in knowing that and keeping in mind that what we're really doing here is talking about developing a relationship.
And you know, as important as that relationship of safety is in our relationships with our spouses and partners and families and others, as important as that safety is, that safety is even more important and can become even more pronounced for us as we develop that relationship through the spirit with our Heavenly Father. And that's how this whole revelation process begins to work in our lives. Yeah, correct. Well these seven keys, Scott, help open the door of revelation.
And just to review them quickly, we did four, I think last week. We did, yeah. We did fear and other negative emotions and replace them with faith and love. Right? That's number one, is we can't let emotions govern our choices and our decisions. We need to, we need to really, I just can't believe how many years, Scott, I was not able to identify even my emotions and what I was feeling personally.
Well, if you don't know what your own emotions are, you can't tell the difference between your emotions and the Holy Ghost. You don't know when you're feeling the Holy Ghost. If you don't even know what you're feeling, I mean, we have to become more mindful and sensitive to identifying our own personal emotions and not let our personal emotions get in the way of the revelations that the Lord wants to give us through the gift of the Holy Ghost. So that's number one.
Number two is to remove the pavilions of selfishness and inappropriate motives and prideful desires by replacing them with not my will, but thine be done. So we have to go just totally open, remove any pavilions of selfishness and inappropriate motives. What's our motive? Why do I want an answer? What do I desire? What are my desires? And then to lay those aside for a moment, really, and not be driven by the natural man and selfish motives that we all have.
And to go to the Father in the name of Christ and to ask what's thy will. You know, not my will, but thine be done, following the example of the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane. Well, and when we do that, you know, we talk about this whole process, this whole podcast has been a repentance kind of experience for us, right? We're learning the Atonement of Jesus Christ. We're learning how to access the Atonement of Jesus Christ through repentance.
And we know that repentance boils down to a broken heart and a contrite spirit. Elder Anderson makes it quite clear in the book that we talk about here that when we talk about that contrite spirit, that's what you're talking about. Thy will be done. Yeah, that's right, Scott. And by the way, the greatest revelation that I know one can ever receive in this life is thy sins are forgiven thee. Oh, wow.
Yeah. The greatest revelation one should seek is to know where they stand with God and to know that their sins are forgiven. Now I know that can be a process. I know that that may take time, but I also know, Scott, that it can be an event and that people are entitled to know where they stand with God and that they can know that they are forgiven and in good standing. So I think we should all seek for that knowledge and that gift of revelation.
Our third one, Scott, was to increase purity and confidence in the presence of God by letting virtue govern our thoughts unceasingly. You know, DNC, Doctrine and Covenants section 121 verses 45 and 46 are the Keith principles here. And I think I mentioned last time you better watch what you view because what you watch will become your view.
So just really controlling, you know, what we what we spend our time engaged in what we're watching what we're listening to those those kinds of things we anything we can do to increase personal purity and virtue in our life will help us to better identify the gift of the Holy Ghost in our life. It's interesting how Satan can just slowly lull us away. Just little tiny things at that's not harmful. No big deal. You know, this just a little what what they say no big deal is they're just words.
You know, the allurement. Yeah, the allurement of Satan and the sophistries and I don't know, Scott, it's it really the world that we live in in the natural man within all of us is a dangerous combination. Yeah. And we just have to be super careful because it can happen before we know it. I know. So increasing personal purity is an important part.
And then the fourth one that we discussed some length last time was using instruments of grace, such as the scriptures, prayer, sacred art and music, ordinances, covenants, fasting, magnifying, calling service, temple service. Yeah, right. Using those instruments of grace, temple being one of them, of course, even going touching the temple being in the on the property in the parking lot, even I whatever.
There are so many instruments of grace that God has mercifully provided for us to be able to receive and feel his spirit. So let me just take a second here to we talked about how Elder Eyring in the dedicatory prayer of the Saratoga Springs Temple recently talked about how even the grounds would be a place of refuge. And I think that's not probably the first time that's been mentioned in a dedicatory prayer for a temple.
And I mentioned to you how that when the Tempanogis Temple was being built, how I used that. Well, what I didn't remember is that every once in a while, Deb, believe it or not, Deb and I will have a conflict. And sometimes when I know, right, you know my person. I remember President Nelson saying, Scott, sister, this is his wife, Dancel, his first wife that passed. Yeah. And Dancel and I have never have never had a fight, but we have had some marvelous disagreements.
Well, I remember sister Hinckley was interviewed. What time they said, Have you ever? Have you ever thought about? I don't know. It was something about negative towards President Hinckley. And she and she said, Oh, divorce never murder, maybe, but divorce never. But anyway, so every once in a while, this is this has happened more than once. And when I get to that point, there's just comes a point where it's just better if I just walk away, get calm down, hurt to. And so I'll go get on.
Conflict, not escalator. There's nothing wrong with conflict. It's when contention enters the conflict that we have problem. And that's true for all of us, because the contention is the tool of the devil, not conflict. Conflict can be actually healthy. It's created. It helps you solve problems. Yeah. But contention, spirit's gone is always of the devil. And so every once in a while, I'll get on my motorcycle and I'll ride to the temple, the Provo temple, which isn't far from us.
And I'll just sit there, no matter what time of day. It's usually quite late at night. And it's happened more than once that I'll look over and I'll see Deb's little white car too. And then we'll, you know, go sit on the grass and, you know, but that really has been also an instrument of grace in our lives too.
Wow. And I've got maybe more people, I haven't done this, but maybe more people, including myself, maybe we need to take some of our disagreements, marvelous disagreements to the temple grounds and discuss them there. Yeah. And some, there's a great place at the home. Although I know the home, the home should be as sacred or more sacred even in the temple.
But sometimes when you're, when the pressure's on there, yeah, sometimes going to the, even the grounds of the house of the Lord can, can help to relieve some of that stress and eliminate some contention. Sweet. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, instruments of grace. So now we're on number, number five.
Scott and number five is to ask the right, what learn to ask the right questions, learn what the difference between curiosity questions and inspired questions and ask for those things that are expedient quotes around expedient because the heavenly Father has promised us in 3rd Nephi that anything that we ask for that is expedient. In another place he says anything that is for your good, you will receive if we ask. So I think the word expedient is important.
It's best for us to be really open to that and to learn to ask those kinds of questions. So a curiosity question might be if I was a single adult and I was trying to decide who to marry or I was married and trying to make critical decisions instead of asking what should I do? Right? That's kind of a curiosity question in a sense. We should pay the price, study it out in our mind.
Dr. incumbent section nine, seven through nine, you said all you had to do was ask, but I say you need to study it out in your mind and then ask me if it be right. Ask the question, you know, instead of who should I marry? Say heavenly Father, this is what I have decided and ask for a confirmation, not just a general question. I think when we use that process and we seek revelation by paying a price because again the Lord doesn't give us anything that we can actually get on our own.
Scott, I mean, he expects us to become a spiritually self-reliant as possible. And after we have paid the price, studied it out in our mind and I know the Spirit will help us to study it out in our mind all along the way. It should become pretty clear to us even maybe before we ask. Now I know there are sometimes where we have no idea what to do and so we need to maybe take him some options and discuss those options with him. But just asking general questions instead of more specific.
This is what I have decided. Here are my options. What should I do is I think really important and then to know that if it's expedient, he will answer. He will say yes. I loved the talk given by Elder Scott years ago that heavenly Father will answer our prayers three ways. He'll say yes, confirmation of the Holy Ghost. He'll say no, super of thought, which is also an answer to the Holy Ghost. I think super of thought has gotten a bad rap.
Super of thought is actually the Holy Ghost helping to take things away from our memory and causing us to forget the very thing that we asked. That's also I think a spiritual confirmation. Or he will say wait. Or he will say give me bring some more options. Bring some more options to me. Wait. And so we have to patiently wait before we make a decision and not rush into it.
According to Elder Scott in a classic conference talk, and I'm sorry, I can't remember the month or year, but I love that process as he describes it. So I also learned Scott that there's a difference between asking for what I want and then asking for heavenly Father to help me in my own personal responsibilities, for example, we've talked about this before, but me praying for my son, that God changed my son, God changed my son, please change my son. For years I prayed for that Scott.
And then one day I was chastised by the Spirit. You are praying for the wrong thing. You don't need to pray for him. You need to pray for you. And then I knew what I had to pray for. And that was help me to be a better father for my son. Help me to know how I can be a better dad. That changed my whole approach to parenting my son and it changed our relationship. And I did receive answers to prayers because I had impressions about when to call him and what to say because I had changed my prayer.
It was more focused on change me, not change him. And that can be true of not only a relationship of father, son, father, child, parent, child, but husband, wife or others that we have responsibility for or with. So asking the right questions are really important.
Well, and sometimes, and I found this to be true, especially, probably not especially, but even in the rooms of recovery, when we're praying for help, when we're praying for guidance, when we're sometimes it's good for us to just say, just show me what I should be praying for too. What should I be looking at and looking for a spouse? What should I be asking you about how to approach this situation? And it's interesting how I've experimented with that.
I put that to experiment on multiple, multiple occasions. And when I do that, how I feel how much more clarity I receive. And with that, the confidence that I have as I move forward, because I feel like then my questions, I have, I have prayed and asked to know what are the inspired questions I should even be asked. Yeah. And it takes a more preparation. It does.
Usually to ask the most inspired question or to ask for those things that are expedient to God, I had a 70 once tell me that he would write down notes in a notebook, a journal before he would pray with his questions and his questions were carefully pondered and prepared long before he ever asked. And he found that to be the most effective way to receive revelation. Sometimes it will come to us in our prayers.
And I've always loved the scripture in Dr. and Covenants section 46, which is on the gifts of the spirit. And this section ends in verse 30. And it reads, he that asketh in the spirit, asketh according to the will of God, wherefore it is done, even as he asketh. And again, I say unto you, all things must be done in the name of Christ whatsoever. Whatever you do in the spirit, and he must give thanks unto God in the spirit for whatsoever blessing you are blessed with. And he must practice.
Here it is against God virtue and holiness before me continually. So there's some against some keys of revelation in that passage. But one of them is that we should pray in the spirit that we should ask inspired spirit prompted questions, not just curiosity questions, or not just, you know, flippantly without pondering or preparing questions that what should I do? And I sometimes that may be appropriate when we have no idea or no clue what we should do.
But I just think it's really important that we pray in the spirit. And when we do, we become like, right, like Nephi, right in Helaman chapter 10, verses four and five, where a voice comes to the Nephi, this is Nephi the third, who's been pondering. And as he was pondering in his heart, behold, a voice came unto him saying, this is Helaman 10, verses four and five.
And I consider out now Nephi for those things which thou has done, for I have beheld how thou hast with unwaringness declared the word which I've given unto the under this people, and thou has not feared them. There it is against God. No fear. And has not sought thine own life, but has sought my will and to keep my commandments. Right. And these are all keys to receiving revelation.
And now because thou has done this with such unwaringness, behold, I will bless thee forever and I will make thee mighty in word and indeed in faith and in works, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word. Get this for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. That's amazing that someone can pray and not ever ask anything that is contrary to the will of God.
And when we get to that point, Scott, we become like Nephi who describes in the second Nephi that he would not pray amiss. He would not ask for anything that was amiss, which is amazing to be able to say that. So we need to really prepare, I guess maybe that's part of the key here, number five, is to make some preparation to learn what are the right questions, what are the inspired questions that we need to ask.
Instead of too many times, Scott, we just write, we just every night we just routinely hit our knees or every morning and we sometimes just say the same things. If we really want revelation, it takes great preparation and work and even the help of the Spirit to know what we should ask in the Spirit to be able to receive revelation by the Spirit. That's number five. Number six, so important, eliminate distractions and distortions. Do not be overcome over programmed by technology.
I just think too many, we've been warned about this. Wow, the AI thing that's coming online. What is that? GPT and all that. GPT. It used to be Google. Now it's AI and so many of us just turn almost automatically now to answers and direction from technology instead of really pondering and trying to receive some spiritual guidance and direction.
And I think it's just too easy for us to become just turn too quickly to our phones and other sources of information that's out there, this age of information that we live in and get too much information, which can really take away from our dependence and trust in receiving answers to our prayers. I just opened my Google Chrome here on my laptop and it doesn't matter what you're typing in anymore. You will get a generative AI response. Yeah. Okay. Right. And here's a problem.
You know, we talk about and we saw the children of Israel do this when Moses came off of Mount Sinai with the law. They had taken things that were familiar to them and they had created this golden calf and they had created a false God and were praying to it. Well, I wonder, I don't think that we're that much different today. I think that today, you know, we have this thing that we're familiar with and that we've become to rely on and it has beautiful, wonderful application in our lives.
It has for the church. It has for our families and for so many other things. But I wonder if sometimes if we aren't creating this false God, if we aren't looking to Google, if we aren't looking to chat GPT, if we aren't looking to some of these things now to give us answers to our questions that we do need to be taken to our Heavenly Father, you know, how do I become a better dad? I can Google that and I can get some great answers. There's no question.
Right. But if I don't rely on the Spirit to confirm the answers that I'm getting, how do I become a better husband? How do I become so many of those things? So many questions and problems. And we can get those answered. You know, when I do this morning, I was on a television doing a spot on economics today and I always go on first and I do that. I Google what I'm going to talk about and I use a lot of what I get there. But that's vastly different than my spiritual life.
If I'm looking for answers for my spiritual life, for the direction that I need, not just for this life but for eternity, and some of us are. And how do I know that? Because we're seeing an exodus, even if it's a small one, of people who are doing that and finding things that are in their minds wrong with the church or wrong with what's happening here. Because of that, it's kind of moving us away. We're putting too much reliance on.
And I love how you put don't become over-programmed by technology. I think we are, as a society, over-programmed by technology. And in a lot of cases, that's really taken the place of our spiritual connection with our Heavenly Father, David. Technology is itself a miracle, Scott. There's no doubt about that. It's such a miracle and it's such a blessing.
But if you become over-programmed for it, and since we're talking about marriage and relationships a little bit today, and you have a problem in your marriage, I'm telling you the first thing to turn to is not Google. That's right. And look up for marriage advice. That is not the place to turn. The place to turn is to fall on your knees and to ponder and pray about how can I change? How can I improve?
How can I... I mean, Scott, that's what we should not be looking for the easy answers or the easy way out using technology. I've been so blessed by technology in so many ways. All of us have. But when we become over-programmed, then the first thing we turn to to fix our problems, and some of them may even be spiritual problems, spiritual questions, challenges in our life, we turn to Google instead of to God. And that's not right. So there's that part of it.
And then there's this other part of it where technology can become an addiction. True. And any addiction. Any addiction separates us from our Heavenly Father. Any addiction. Yeah, absolutely.
And for example, you know, Deb and I are teaching Institute still, and we're still teaching the Divine Gift of forgiveness, that curriculum that you spent so much time developing and others and the curriculum from which the book, the Divine Gift of Forgiveness itself was sort of derived, not sort of completely derived. But as we do this, you know, we've been kind of asked to put some emphasis on addiction recovery and how do we overcome and how do we heal from those things?
And I was surprised and I probably shouldn't have been, but I was surprised it caught me off guard. How many young people and I don't know, maybe older people too, will spend the entire night just get caught. I've got caught up in it.
So I guess it's possible to understand, but how they'll get caught up in gaming or how they'll get caught up in Google searching or how they'll get and it's in and it's entertaining and it's numbing and it helps them pull away from reality and it helps them escape and all of their problems and so on. How many of them, I had one guy tell me in our class, a student in our class a couple of semesters ago, he told it to me one on one personally, I said, how serious is this?
And he says, well, I'll tell you what, he says, there'll be nights when I'll sit down and start gaming. And the next thing I know, I look out the window and the sun's coming up. And I have to go take my go to my classes at the university now. That's the same sort of distraction or numbing out or consumption of and consuming of ourselves that one would get from alcohol and drugs. It's just not a lot different. I mean, there are some differences in the way it can affect our body.
I don't want anybody emailing me and saying, hey, smoking and drinking and all that's obviously we, that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is our spiritual separation. We're talking about how do we receive more revelation. And we have to have that spiritual connection in order for that to take place. And when we don't, it won't. Yeah, absolutely. Scott. So, yeah, you know, we, we, because of the world we live in, you wake up in the middle of the night.
Sometimes the first thing we turn to, right? Yeah, the phone is our phone. Yeah. And we start looking news and we start looking at all the problems of the world and we start thinking about all the, and we just more information, more information, more information.
I'm telling you, Scott, some of the sweetest experiences of my life have been wake up in the middle of the night and to ponder, to meditate, to pray, to ponder some more, and then pray again, and to maybe spend an hour with God in the middle of the night instead of spending an hour playing a game or on Google in the middle of the night. Right. And then the rest can be totally life changing. Yeah. That's just a total different, right?
Approach to, to how you see the world and yourself and your relationship with Heavenly Father. One strengthens your relationship with the world and the other strengthens your relationship with deity. So I just hope that all of our families and listeners will not become so over programmed by technology that that's the first thing they turn to. We should use it. It can be an amazing blessing for all of us. I mean, I figured out how to fix, can you believe this, Scott?
I figured out how to fix my, our dishwasher. My wife and I have this dishwasher that sometimes the start button just blinks and you can't get it to work. So I just thought, well, okay, I'll, I'll YouTube it. I YouTube it and I got this answer, which said, just go downstairs on the circuit breaker and reset it. I reset it. I was about ready to replace the dishwasher and that fixed it. Just flipping the switch. Just flipping the switch. Well, Google helped you that day. YouTube. Oh, YouTube.
YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Save me. I don't know how many hundreds of dollars it would cost to replace a dishwasher. I know the blessings. I do too. Yeah. But when that becomes our first go to, instead of with some of our real problems and some of the really quiet time that we could be spending with God, instead of having our eyes take in other things that are not inspired and sometimes not even appropriate. Wow. What a difference it can make.
Have you ever been around somebody who's on their phone and you're trying? Yeah. Even in my own family, Scott, that you're trying to have a family event and everybody's looking at their phone and it drives me crazy. You wonder, I wonder, because I have that experience. I wish I could just have a box and say, put your phone in here, then come in. I said that to Deb one time. I said, we're just going to get a box and everybody's putting their phone in the box when they come in.
And she says, well, you can do that, but nobody will come. It's kind of sad. And it's true. Kind of sad. But I wonder if, I wonder if, you know, I feel that as a father and you feel that as a father and as a friend and even as a spouse and even whatever, you know, we're with people sometimes who seem more interested and more, and maybe I've been that guy too. I'm sure I have, you know, more interested and more involved in what's going on in their phone than what's taking place around them.
I wonder if Heavenly Father sometimes feels that way. I wonder if he looks at that and says, guys, you really don't get it. You know, that's not more important than what you could be doing. Now, and again, there's an appropriate time and what we're talking about here is balance, which is funny because I heard Elder Bednar give a talk the other day to Ensign College when he said, balance is bogus. He said, don't worry about balance. That's bogus. We should focus on what we should focus on.
And I think that, I think that sometimes, you know, I, it's not just a distraction for us, but I wonder again, if Heavenly Father is just a tad bit disappointed thinking, gosh, God, or, or, or. But we live far beneath our, our privileges. Scott, we're not trying more intentionally. What about President Nelson's favorite words when we're not being more intentional in receiving revelation and instead we just are trying to get information.
Right. Now, I know good information leads to good revelation, but too many times we're just getting information doesn't even matter making any, any eternal significance in our life, any significance in our life. Round and round we go, you know, we're just chasing the tail of information. And a lot of times we're chasing that tail with no end game insight. And they can, and that can be such a distraction. Yeah. So eliminate distractions and distortions.
And there's all kinds of distortions and deception on the internet. The final key of revelation is to meditate and to listen and then record impressions. Again this same member of the 70 years ago who I was, went to lunch with, he and his wife said that he had been trained by Elder Bednar on how to receive revelation. And again, I think revelation is a skill.
It's not just something that we hope for or something that just kind of spontaneously, I know it can take place spontaneously, but revelation is a skill and this is a skill that can be learned and a skill that must be developed. So he had learned the skill of writing down an inspired question with a notebook, praying about it, and then he had his pen in hand and his notebook in front of him as he prayed and would take moments after he prayed to write down his first impressions.
And those first impressions were often as the Prophet Joseph Smith described the first impressions that come to your mind are from God and he would write down these impressions. So I just think it's really critical. Elder Scott said that if you want revelation, when you read the scriptures have a pencil in your hand so that you can mark down passages.
And as you mark down passages, the Holy Ghost can, because you're committed to listen and to mark and to search and not just read, but you're really searching and treasuring the Word that having a red pencil in hand can be an instrument of revelation about how you read the scriptures. If you journal how you read the scriptures, if you journal the impressions that you have in doing come follow me.
Writing down impressions, Scott, recording those can be another source, another key to receiving revelation. And I just don't think that we meditate and listen enough. You know in the middle of the night again, if you have time to just set and meditate. Last night I sat in the woke up and I thought you know I could go back to my bed and look at my phone. I'm just going to sit in chair here and meditate. I love those moments.
I love those sweet experiences in my life when I can just set and meditate and try to listen and pray, whether I'm sitting or standing or walking or whatever, just to meditate and listen. So I know that as we seek revelation in our life, Scott, that Heavenly Father is anxious, anxious, according to President Elton, to give us revelation and that we need to be more intentional about it.
In fact, it's really been I think one of the great callings of President Nelson, one of his great purposes or he feels a mission, a call to help the church and to help us individually to receive more personal revelation. One of the first talks that he gave was on, I think it was the first talk that he gave to the whole church after being called as a prophet in 2018, was revelation in the church and personal revelation.
Then he talked about how to increase our spiritual capacity and our intentions on receiving revelation. His talk entitled Hear Him, which was given April 2020 at the 200th anniversary of the first vision has always been one of my favorites on how to receive personal revelation and hear the voice of the Lord. And he uses the Prophet Joseph Smith's first vision and tells us that that should be an example to us on how to receive revelation.
And on that note, by the way, the Prophet Joseph Smith in asking inspired question, which is one of our seven key points. He didn't go ask Elder Bednoir, I think just powerfully makes this point. He didn't go say, what church should I join? That wasn't his prayer. His prayer was, I've decided to join and he's told to join none of them. You know, he doesn't go ask which church is true. He asked which church should I join? Well that's a statement of commitment. That's a question of commitment.
You know, instead of just what church is true, that wasn't the inspired question. The inspired question was which church should I join? It was a statement that he was willing to act, that's an action is faith. And when we ask questions that show our faith, then we're more likely to get an answer.
So I hope that our listeners will continue to listen for the Holy Ghost in their life, which I know comes and I know that you can recognize it by the prescriptions given to us in the scriptures, particularly Dr. and Covenant section 11, which I know that we've quoted before in this course. Scott by section 11, I love this description of how to recognize the Holy Ghost in her life and it's section 11 verses 12 through 14.
Now verily I say unto thee, put your trust in that spirit, which leadeth to do good. So number one, the spirit will always lead us to do good and to do something. Almost always the Holy Ghost will tell us what to do and it will be good to do justly. It will lead us to be just, to fair, to be humble and to walk humbly, to judge righteously this is my spirit. Verily verily I say unto you, I will impart unto you of my spirit, which shall enlighten your mind. That's number five.
And which shall fill your soul with joy. That's number six. And we could say and fill your soul with peace. Then shall you know or by this shall you know all things whatsoever you desire of me, which are pertaining unto things of righteousness in faith, believing in me that you shall receive. Then maybe the last key then, which would be number eight would be to ask in faith, believing that you shall receive.
Well thank you Scott for time this morning and talking about one of my favorite topics and points of doctrine in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is how to receive answers to our prayer and receive revelation from our loving Heavenly Father who wants to communicate more with us. On this last key to meditate and listen and then record impressions, I think this meditation also there's a component to that. You know I believe prayer and meditation usually go really well hand in hand, right?
Because you know when we communicate, when we're praying we're communicating to Heavenly Father. When we meditate we're opening up ourselves to receive those answers. We quiet our mind, we open our spirit, we open our soul. And as you know the eleventh step in Alcoholics Anonymous reads, we sought through prayer and meditation to improve, to improve our conscious contact with God.
And you know I love that because I don't know any of us that really has a desire to be close to Him that's not in a constant desire also to improve that conscious contact. Not just contact, but that conscious contact to be aware of the contact that we have with Him. And Scripture proves this out, the revelations that we receive from our prophets and brethren.
And right here in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous I think all of these things work together to help us understand how do we improve that conscious contact and by so doing also our relationship with our Heavenly Father. Yeah, well thank you Scott. And I love how President Elton is trying so hard to teach us how to, as this is going to end quote and actually an enzyme article from January 2021, how to grow into revelation.
It's a process, we shouldn't expect this skill of how to receive revelation to come in an instant or a moment. And how can we, I invite all of our listeners, what steps can I begin to take to learn this skill and to grow into revelation. And as doctrine comes in section 50, this is your grandpa, D'Orphys, my dad, this is one of his favorite scriptures, grow brighter and brighter until the perfect day.
Well that perfect day is probably not going to be in this life, none of us is going to be perfect at this. But we need to learn and begin to make a plan and journal how can we grow into the principle of revelation.
As our listeners accept that invitation, all of us, myself included, as we begin to journal and ponder and pray on how can we grow into the principle of revelation, how can I receive more revelation, how can I stop living beneath my privileges as Brigham Young puts it and start to receive more communication, direction from God through the Holy Ghost. It can be a life changing moment and experience in our life, Scott.
And maybe some of the most important things that we can be doing, you know, this isn't easy, this does require work, effort, let's put it that way. This does require effort. It may not seem easy, but it's better than an easier than living a life without revelation, without that contact, without being aware of that contact and communication, and actually communion, you know, with our Heavenly Father. And when I think, when I use the word communion, I think of a more sacred relationship.
I think of a covenantal relationship that we all, that we're talking about here and it's kind of the pinnacle of our efforts. To be with you again, David. You too. I love you, our families and others, and so thankful that we believe in continuous revelation and that the Restoration has helped us to show us patterns and give us additional scripture to know how we might be able to receive personal revelation in our lives. I'm grateful that I've been able to experience this in my own life.
I'm committed to being worthy of and working towards and developing the skills so that I can experience it more. I hope that we all can have that exact same resolve as we move through this week and through our lives. Thanks for being with us, everybody. We look forward to being with you again next week and until then, remember you have been redeemed through His blood. We'll see you next week.