Become a Spiritual Man

Everyone would love to have personal revelation. You might even have experienced it yourself. Direct guidance from god. A personal spiritual channel between you and your heavenly father. It could be as simple as a prompting or as powerful as a physical voice.

I'm at a point in my life where I'm seeking for this personal revelation. I'm making major decisions right now that will have a huge effect on the rest of my life. I've realized that all I've been doing is asking, however. Everything comes with a sacrifice of some kind, and that applies to personal revelation as well. I realize that I need to sacrifice some of my time to go the extra mile spiritually. I need to spend more time on my knees and less time in my office chair on my computer, unless of course I'm looking up videos on Mormon.org. ;)

1st Corinthians 2: 14 states, "But the natural man recieveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." If I'm not nourishing the spiritual side of myself then I'm not going to be getting personal revelation. Period. It's time I stopped relying on textbooks and even mormon literature to find revelation. It's time I gave up some time, fell on my knees, and offered more sincere prayers. I must become a spiritual man.

Good luck in the days, weeks, months, and years to come. The road will often seem hard that we are called to trek, but if we rely on Christ anything is possible.

Walk Honestly Toward Them

As I was reading in 1st Thessalonians in the Bible, a letter to the saints in Thessilonica, I came across a scripture (1 Thessalonians 4:12) that said, "walk honestly towards them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." I've been thinking a lot about what this is trying to say.

In my very non-expert opinion, I interpreted it to be saying that to approach people honestly with the gospel we have to be completely honest with ourselves first. Do I believe in what I'm going to be teaching for two years? When I teach am I going to be spitting facts, or bearing a piece of my soul to them? I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be true to yourself.

This ties in to how personalized the gospel is to each of us I think. The most precious part of the gospel to someone else is probably completely different than what I hold dear. Our task is to find out how the gospel fits into each of our individual lives, and be honest to ourselves about that before we can teach others how to do the same thing.

Sometimes I wish the apostles would write me a letter of advice, as they did to the Thessalonians. I'm grateful for the talks they have given in General Conferences to the church that are available online. Sometimes I feel like they're talking directly to me. I'm still trying to figure out who I am as a member of the church, even though I know it is true. So for all of those people thinking the same thing: You're not alone.

The Unknown Gods in our Lives

This week I’ve been trying to work out my schedule. I consistently feel spread pretty thin, like I don’t really have time for anything anymore. As I was pondering the reasons for this I came across this in the scriptures:

In Acts 17: 22-31, Paul, an apostle of the crucified and resurrected Jesus Christ, is preaching on Mars' Hill in Athens one day and he comes across a bunch of alters used by the people there for sacrifices. As he spots each alter on the hill he notices that they are each dedicated to an individual pagan god. One takes him aback, as it is dedicated to, "THE UNKNOWN GOD". 

How like the people of Athens we can become. I feel like we can have alters to unknown gods. What I mean is that we can get so caught up in something unimportant here on earth that it ends up being something that we subconsciously “worship”. It may not even be one of the common earthly things that people tend to "worship" such as money, cars, etc. It can be anything that consumes too much of your time, energy, or gets in the way of better things. 

I've found that sometimes I let little things like popularity, clothing, or even classes get in the way of the more important spiritual things in my life. Even little things like that can take up a substantial amount of time that I could be doing much more worthwhile things with my life. I think this is an area where everyone can always improve, so let's do our best, eh?

That Which Looms in our Path: Taking a Step Back

Life isn't always going to be perfect.

Even the best of people are going to get pushed over the edge sometimes. 

     I mean, look even at the apostle Paul. In Acts 15: 36-41 his companion Barnabas wanted to bring Mark along to check on all of the cities they had preached in, but something about Mark just irked Paul, they got into a contention of some sort, bad enough that Barnabas took Mark to another city and Paul travelled with Silas (another apostle) instead.

     We don't really know what it was that bothered him, they were both apostles of God. But even the apostles are allowed to get flustered sometimes. This really gave me hope, as I find myself frequently frustrated by things that happen in my own life. It's okay to take a break sometimes, even to take another path with a different person if necessary! Either way they both went and continued The Lord's missionary work, probably more effectively than if they had travelled together despite their contention. 

            The point is that there’s no denying that life is going to be difficult at times. It’s what we do in response to it that makes the difference, though. We can choose to merely wallow in our struggles and contentions, halting our spiritual and emotional progression, or we can choose to take a step back, get a good look at the big picture, and then make a decision of how we can overcome the obstacle that looms in our way. 

Good luck out there!

Trust and Faith

First and foremost, this blog is a place where I will be coming occasionally to write about what has helped me personally to find peace in my life. I hope you might find something to ponder about as you read through experiences that certainly have made me ponder, to say the least.

So without further ado...


Gamaliel. It's not exactly a common household name.
      Yet I find myself marveling at this man--this pharisee--who essentially saved the apostles from unnecessary persecution. All he did was tell the rest of the pharisees that if what the apostles did was of men, it would fail on its own, and if what they were teaching was truly of God there was nothing they could do to stop it anyways.

      I'm not sure why this passage in The Acts hit me so hard (Acts 5:34-39). I think it's because Gamaliel, while he didn't necessarily believe what the apostles were teaching, had enough trust and faith in God to know that his will would come to pass regardless of what they as council members did. 

      It helped me to realize that I'm going to encounter a lot of people like that in my life. While they may not necessarily have the same beliefs as me, we may share the same love and trust in God, and I need to be more sensitive to that and respect it. 

Well. Those are my thoughts for this week.