God Gives Guidance from those who can find it

from no one else

Introduction

Beowulf, the title of the earliest recorded poem in European history as well
as the name of its heroic main character, spoke truth when this noble knight
said “God gives guidance to those who can find it from no one else.”
Now, Beowulf is a knight who finds great strength in his humble dependence
on God to conquer the evils that spawned from Cain; evils as dreadful has
fiends, goblins, monsters, and dragons. The second great monster he faces
in the epic poem has him at great odds with survival. He had explored all
possible means to defeat the dragon and there appeared to be no
triumphant solution. Beowulf recounts his helpless situation to the Danish
King and what subsequently occurred. “My life was almost lost, fighting for
it, struggling under water. I’d… been dead at once, and the fight finished…If
our Father in Heaven had not… showed me, hanging shining and
beautiful on a wall, a mighty old sword” This sword then allowed him to
decisively “kill the monstrous hag in her own home”. Beowulf summarizes
the miraculous victory stating “God gives guidance to those who can
find it from no one else.” And so it is with my talk today, to help you
understand how you can receive divine guidance to conquer the great
struggles in your life when you “can find it from no one else”.

The foundational message of my discourse comes from Elders Scott’s

general conference address entitled “To Acquire Spiritual Guidance”. For
purposes of the flow and understanding of my talk I will only call out a few of
his quotations even though his words are intertwined with mine at various
points of this message. The three points I hope to communicate today in
regards to spiritual guidance are:

1. Why we need it

2. What is the process to receive more of it?

3. What can hinder its full reception into our lives?

Why we need it

Life can seem complicated, confusing, and hopeless at times. Heavenly

Father knew “we would face challenges and be required to make some
decisions that would be beyond your own ability to decide correctly”. As a
result, He has provided us with the ability to receive divine inspiration and
guidance to know how to manage and live our lives. His guidance “is a
power, beyond our own capability, that a loving Heavenly Father wants us to
use consistently for peace and happiness”. This divine power is not to be
reserved for only monumental decisions such as who to marry, how many
children to have, if we should change careers, or if we should move to
another part of the country. This power is meant for, as Elder Scott put it,
consistent or daily use for our peace and happiness. So if you want to have
more peace and happiness then listen closely because Elder Scott outlined
exactly how we can achieve this.

The Process

First of all I want to make it very clear that receiving consistent spiritual
guidance is hard work. It is not something that one can easily obtain by
living life casually and passively. Elder Scott reiterates this “I am convinced
that there is no simple formula or technique that would immediately allow
you to master the ability to be guided by the voice of the Spirit…”.

You may be thinking:

Why does Heavenly Father require so much effort on our end to receive
answers and inspiration?

Or

If our Heavenly Father truly loves us doesn’t it make more sense to have him
give us answers on how to obtain peace and happiness more freely?

Elder Scott’s response to this is “were you to receive inspired guidance just
for the asking you would become weak and ever more dependent on
them…” In other words, it is Heavenly Father’s love that requires us, at
times, to struggle and work through the process of receiving applicable
inspiration. The process strengthens our reason, competence, logic, and
confidence. It makes us better men and women more qualified for His great
work.

So what must we do to acquire spiritual guidance? As many of the children

and adults in this congregation know inspiration can come from prayer,
scripture study, general conference, and church attendance. If you are like
me you will feel that such activities are good and, yeah, you get some
spiritual guidance. What I have learned through preparing this talk is that
the casual doing of these activities radically limits the concise, applicable
revelation that one receives. So, what can we do to make scripture
readying, church attendance, and daily life less casual?

Well, Listen to the following experience shared by Elder Scott on what he

does to acquire Beowulf-like inspiration that changes lives and defeats evil:

“In that environment (referring to a Sunday School class), strong

impressions began to flow to me... I wrote them down. The message
included specific counsel on how to become more effective as an instrument
in the hands of the Lord. I received such an outpouring of impressions that
were so personal that I felt it was not appropriate to record them in the midst
of a Sunday School class. I sought a more private location, where I
continued to write the feelings that flooded into my mind and heart as
faithfully as possible. After each powerful impression was recorded, I
pondered the feelings I had received to determine if I had accurately
expressed them in writing. As a result, I made a few minor changes to what
had been written. Then I studied their meaning and application in my
own life.

Subsequently I prayed, reviewing with the Lord what I thought I had been
taught by the Spirit. When a feeling of peace came, I thanked Him for the
guidance given. I was then impressed to ask, “Was there yet more to be
given?” I received further impressions, and the process of writing down the
impressions, pondering, and praying for confirmation was repeated. Again I
was prompted to ask, “Is there more I should know?” And there was. When
that last, most sacred experience was concluded, I had received some of the
most precious, specific, personal direction one could hope to obtain in this
life. Had I not responded to the first impressions and recorded them,
I would not have received the last, most precious guidance.

What I have described is not an isolated experience. It embodies several true

principles regarding communication from the Lord to His children here on
earth. I believe that you can leave the most precious, personal direction of
the Spirit unheard because you do not respond to, record, and apply the first
promptings that come to you.”

I gained a couple of key insights reading Elder Scott’s experience and they
are as follows:

1. Effort: He took the effort to write thoughts and impressions down.

Only when he started to write did the outpouring of impressions flood
his mind and his paper.
2. Private Location: He sought a private location where he continued to
record these feelings as “faithfully as possible”. He did not record
casually but gave his full attention to the process.
 3. Accuracy: He pondered his writings to ensure that they were accurate
and made changes as necessary.
4. Confirmation: He studied their application in his own life and prayed
for peace to ensure that what he recorded was God’s will.

I know that there are some in this congregation today who are doing this and
have made this a habit in their lives. I am not one of them. From now on I
am making a conscience effort to make this a part of my daily worship. In
2003 Jannah, my lovely wife, bought me this black journal. In the six years I
have had it I have filled out 30% of its pages. I now plan to keep this book
with me wherever I go to be available for whatever may come. I hope the
book will be full of quotes, inspiration, and anything else I find meaningful in
my life that merits recording.

What can hinder the Spirit’s full reception in our lives (outside of
the casualness we have already addressed)?

In the middle of our backyard lies a sloped surface leading towards a drain.
Hovering this drain sits a good sized palm tree that loved to share its many palm
kernels with the world below. Occasionally we would sweep these droppings up but
due to their sheer number not all could be prevented from falling in the drain.

I have two girls named Mariah and Callie. They are good little girls and very
curious. These girls like to create, play, and explore in whatever environment they
are in. A few months ago, over the course of several days these girls got into a
container of sand that was left over from the previous residents. This sand got
everywhere and much of it got washed down the drain in an effort to maintain the
cleanliness of our backyard.

The rains came and went and then came again. Two months ago we noticed a
puddle in our backyard that was centered on top of our drain. The sun came and
eventually it went away. The next rain fall the puddle gradually became a flooded
backyard. When the rains went away the enormous puddle remained leaving all
three of our girls a wonderfully disgusting place to romp and splash. Days passed
and our children’s play puddle remained. Jannah and I knew we had a problem with
the drain but procrastinated its cleaning. Finally, one afternoon while I was at work,
my wife, a woman of immense initiative, tackled the project on her own. First she
removed the muddy debris caked on top of the drain. Then, with difficulty,she removed
the grating. As she reached down into the drain’s opening her hand was immediately blocked
by a compact wall of mud. This woman of extreme initiative rolled up her sleeves and went to
work. She started by extracting fists full of mud and sand. The more she scraped the more
clear it became that this wall of mud contained a root system which made its clearance
extremely challenging. What we believed happened is that the palm kernels dropped into the
sanded, muddy drain created by our curious girls and created a perfect breeding ground for
some palm kernels to take root and grow.

90 Minutes later she had a plastic bag full of mud, sand, and roots. She managed to dig four
inches deep into the drain’s base before the drain’s horizontal curvature made it impossible for
her adult hand to get where it needed to be. The drains’ opening is about four inches in
diameter. Unfortunately, after all of Jannah’s labor, the puddle remained leaving more wet
children’s clothes scattered across our kitchen.

Over the next five hours the puddle did drain. But as we got up the next morning, we noticed
another small puddle over the area that came from our morning sprinklers. That puddle was
usually gone by day’s end but still created a daily challenge of keeping out small children who
love to play in water.

Two weeks later I finally went to The Home Depot and bought a “Snake” which is a bendable,
flexible tool malleable enough to make its way into a curved drain or toilet to declog it. After 30
minutes of using the snake, I was able to remove the previously unreachable muddied roots. It
finally cleared and the puddle went away.

The comparison

So why do I share this story? Well, as I thought about this experience I realized that our
communication with our Heavenly Father is much like the interaction that occurs between water
and a drain. To clarify this muddy story I will breakdown each comparison so you can relate it to
your own lives:

i. The Drain represents the spiritual pathway from God’s Spirit to our
Spirit

ii. The water is divine inspiration and revelation that Heavenly Father is
willing to give at certain times in our lives. Much like rain…we may
read the forecast of its arrival (church, scriptures, books) but never
quite know when and how strong the drops of inspiration will fall.

iii. The sand and mud are worldly distractions that we allow into our lives
(examples being: entertainment, material possessions, stresses of
work and home, etc.). These distractions keep us from pondering
God’s word and life in general.

iv. The palm kernels are sins that we casually allow to enter our lives not
knowing their seriousness and ability to hamper our communication.

v. The roots represent our procrastination to repent and the danger of

letting sins fester in our Spirits.

vi. The puddle represents stored up inspiration that God is wanting to

share but can’t because of our spiritual atrophy. Some divine
 guidance may seep through but it will be minimal and much less than
what God wants to give us.…

vii. The cleansing process of the drain is repentance. Depending on the

amount of sand, dirt, and roots congesting our drain this cleansing
can be difficult and lengthy. Progress may be slow but each
additional handful of muddied roots that we extract allows more
inspiration to seep through to our souls. Upon full removal of all sin,
the individual will be able to receive full inspiration if they are
continually clearing their drain and actively seeking the inspiration.

viii. So the question is how clear are our spiritual drains? What do we
need to remove from our lives to allow God to communicate with us
on a more frequent basis? What sins are taking root? How big is the
puddle of inspiration that He wants to give us but can’t because of our
neglect?

Conclusion

In summary, receiving spiritual guidance is hard work. It requires mental, emotional, and
physical discipline. We need to listen, write down our impressions, and further explore these
impressions through prayer and more written word. I would like to end with the following
statement from Elder Scott:

“I am convinced that as you gain experience and success in being guided by the Spirit
your confidence in the impressions you feel can become more certain than your
dependence on what you hear or see.”

“However, the Lord will not force you to learn. You must exercise your agency to
authorize the Spirit to teach you. As you make this a practice in your life, you will be
more perceptive to the feelings that come with spiritual guidance. Then, when that
guidance comes, sometimes when you least expect it, you will recognize it more easily.”

So, when you can find guidance from no one else remember that if you act and work
with Beowulf like faith God will open the windows of Heaven and allow the rains of
inspiration to flow to your soul.

I leave these things with you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.