Most of you came to this training—understandably—to solve problems. In every chapter thus far, we HAVE already discussed solutions, or at least the approach to solutions, for a number of specific Common Problem Behaviors—which I listed in Chapters One and Two. But of course there are many more behaviors and solutions, and we’ll be getting to many of them shortly. We’ve used a great number of scripture references, along with the words of leaders of the restored Church and other wise men and women. In every case the emphasis has been on practical answers you can actually begin to use right now.

In the following chapters we will continue to address specific Protecting Behaviors—as well as the Common Problem Behaviors—in practical ways. And for years to come, I hope that we’ll continue to write and film additional support materials and post them on this site.

Although there is a natural and sometimes necessary tendency to fix immediate problems—a leaking pipe in the house must be addressed before daily scripture reading, for example—we still must never lose our focus on underlying principles. Before we fix what is broken, we must know how to BUILD a life. We must know the final destination before we can meaningfully correct our course.

I know many people who have experienced a cracked wall or window in their house. Diligently they have repaired the crack or replaced the window, only to have it recur, often worse than the first time. They were busy fixing cracks but failing to search for the CAUSE. In most cases, the cracks resulted from a shifting or broken foundation for the entire building. Before we chase cracks, we must be inspecting our present foundation and building a “sure foundation.” (Isaiah 28:16; Helaman 5:12)

We all know that the “sure Rock” upon which we must build is Jesus Christ, He whose love and atoning sacrifice make eternal life and joy in this life possible for all of us. We also know that this knowledge, while central to our salvation, is not specific enough to guide us as we respond to a difficult child in a particular situation we’ve never handled successfully before. If the knowledge that Christ is the Rock were sufficient by itself, the remainder of scripture would become unnecessary, the Prophet would not need to continue to speak to us, and you would not be here for this Training.

I re-emphasize that our primary purpose as parents is not just to manage children and the problems they present to us. We are not policemen. We are shepherds charged with leading His children back to him. Now, to be sure, we WILL talk about solving problems—in this and later chapters—but we will not lose our focus on being under-shepherds for the Master and builders upon His Rock.

In every chapter to this point, I’ve already illustrated this weaving of building and repairing. You might remember the detailed example I used in Chapter One about responding to whining in children, using some very specific approaches. But I emphasized that “not whining” is not a celestial principle, not even a worthy goal in this life. Our real goal is to teach our children love and gratitude, in the presence of which whining simply disappears. Building, not just repairing.

TEACHING FAITH

Let’s continue building our foundation by talking about essential principles.

Faith in What?

What’s the first essential principle? According to Joseph Smith, and Nephi, and Abinadi, and Alma, and Moroni, and, well, Jesus Christ, the first principle of the gospel is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And THAT is where we tend to go off the path, right from the beginning.

I have heard and read untold thousands of talks as a child, as a teen, as a missionary, and as an adult where I was taught—along with everyone around me—to have faith that:

If we pray in faith, and if we minister in faith to the sick, they will be healed.
If we look for opportunities to teach the gospel, we will find and baptize people into the kingdom of God.
If we have faith, we will find the eternal partner we seek.
If we pay our tithing, we will be rewarded ten-fold, or a hundred-fold, or whatever.
If we raise our children faithfully in the Church, they will stay active in the Church, and we will enjoy sweet communion with them in this life and in the life to come.

These are not true principles. They translate to this: If we have sufficient faith in what we WANT, we will receive it. That is not what the Savior Himself said. He said, “Whatever you ask the Father in my name, which is right, believing that you will receive, it will be given to you.” (3 Nephi 18:10)

We will receive what we pray for (1) in faith and (2) “which is right.” And how do we know what is right? We will know if we have faith in Jesus Christ, and in His will, and in the plan of the Father and the Son, and then we are in a position where He and His Father can communicate their will to us through the Holy Ghost.

So what does it mean to have faith in Jesus Christ?

To have faith that He will give us what we want?

No, it means to have faith:

That He loves us infinitely and unconditionally.
That because of His love for us—and through the power of His love for us—He lived and died in such a way that He was able to satisfy the demands of justice and give life to the arms of mercy to enfold us in the power of what we call His Atonement.
That He has designed this entire universe in such a way that every one of us will obtain every blessing that we are truly willing to receive, which we demonstrate through our faith in Him and obedience to His commandments.

Faith in Jesus Christ means to trust Him and His love, not to trust in the outcome we desire. As President Nelson said, one person exercises faith in Christ as he “pleads for the life of a loved one,” and another—with “even more faith”—exercises faith in Christ when a loved one dies. (Liahona May 2021) It’s not about the outcome. It’s about trusting in Him and His love.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland talked about real faith when he said, "For every infirm man healed instantly as he waits to enter the Pool of Bethesda, someone else will spend 40 years in the desert waiting to enter the promised land. For every Nephi and Lehi divinely protected by an encircling flame of fire for their faith, we have an Abinadi burned at a stake of flaming fire for his [faith] ... Faith means trusting God in good times and bad ... That can be difficult in our modern world when many have come to believe that the highest good in life is to avoid all suffering, that no one should ever anguish over anything. But that belief will never lead us to "the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (Ensign Nov 2020)

Many years ago I attended a stake general priesthood meeting, and the stake president, a good and inspired man, told all the brethren in attendance, “I promise you that if you will faithfully home teach all those families assigned to you, they will return to activity in the Church.” One brother from my ward stood up in the middle of the meeting and brashly said, “President, that is not true. What you have promised would cancel the principle of agency. We can only minister to the best of our ability, but our faith is in Christ not in the outcome we might want.”

The outspoken man’s bishop stood and added, “President, I’ve never seen a man as diligent in home teaching as this man, and although I have seen miracles from his ministering to his families, many have not responded at all, and there is no indication that they ever will.”

Let’s apply these lessons—faith in Christ, not our desired outcome—directly to our parenting.

So what can you have faith in?

You can have faith that loving your children as Christ has loved us is the most effective way to reach a child. That is a true principle.
You can have faith that you CAN learn to be loving IF you do what it takes to feel loved yourself and to share it with your children.
You can have faith that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will heal your pain and fears, and will heal your children’s pain and fears as they turn to Him.

The more we understand faith, the more effective it becomes. We have to plant faith, nurture it, and feed it.

Elder Uchtdorf said, “In my experience, belief (or faith) is not so much like a painting we look at and admire, and about which we discuss and theorize. It is more like a plow that we take into the fields and, by the sweat of our brow, create furrows in the earth that accept seeds and bear fruit that shall remain.” (John 15:16) (Ensign Nov 2018)

Example of Faith

On more occasions than I’d like to recall, I have observed children as they are taught the principle of faith, often using the archaic language of the early 1600s from the King James Bible, and their eyes glaze over as their minds wander off to another planet—or video game. Ironically, children WANT to feel connected to their heavenly home and their Heavenly Parents. They are born with an inner faith that somehow someone will guide them back where they belong.

In nature we see a similar inner yearning to return home in the case of salmon, who are hatched from eggs in a particular pool or stretch of a stream and then migrate hundreds of miles downriver to the ocean. They grow to full size over a period of years and then swim a thousand miles of ocean and river to the exact pool where they were spawned.

For many years scientists puzzled over this miraculous instinct, and now they believe that salmon navigate by using the earth's magnetic field like a compass to get to the mouth of the river from which they came. Then they begin to use an astonishingly acute sense of smell to follow the trail—imprinted on them as hatchlings—to their specific home stream.

Salmon don’t read underwater printed signs that point them home. They use a feeling, in this case smell, which guides them through thousands of potentially confusing obstacles and changes. Children don’t initially benefit much from written signs either, even when they’re written on the pages of the scriptures. What they are most sensitive to is their feelings, and they follow those. After leaving the spirit world and finding themselves thousands of miles out in the ocean, they yearn for the scent of home, and in the beginning WE are the most immediate mortal source of that scent.

If we provide the pure love of Christ early in their lives, when they are still sensitive to that feeling from their premortal life, they will follow it. It is early in life that they are most easily imprinted with those feelings and impressions of “home.” To paraphrase Proverbs, “Raise a child from the beginning in a Christ-like way, and he will stay on that path.” (Proverbs 22:6) Such a child will then far more easily feel the whisperings of the Spirit in daily life, from prayer, and from the written word of God.

A child who is not imprinted early with our scent of Christ-like love can so easily become confused by the profusion of other smells from the world, and they find themselves in murky pools that cannot sustain life, in streams that do not lead them home.

The question we must always be asking ourselves is, “Are we attracting our children to their heavenly home with the trail of scent we leave behind as we walk the earth?” Are we leading them home? Or are we confusing them? It is not with our words that we most prominently lead. They follow our love—the scent of God and His presence—and our own demonstrations of faith.

I don’t recall ever seeing a child suddenly come to an intellectual understanding of the principle of faith. But on many occasions I have seen a child faithfully follow a parent, and from there continue toward his or her eventual destination. You will never say anything more powerful to a child about faith in Christ than this: “If you follow ME and my love, you will come to understand what it means to trust and follow Jesus Christ, whose servant I am.” (That was the most important sentence I will speak in this entire training.) To paraphrase Elder Holland from Chapter Four, we can and must be able to say to our children, “While your faith is now small in Christ, I invite you to follow me.” (Ensign May 2013)

Christ said, “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.” (John 14:7) He could say that because He lived in such a way that to know Him was to know His Father. Similarly, we as parents can live in such a way that for our children to know us is to know Christ.

Whether you realize it or not—whether you “mean” to or not—you ARE teaching your children faith with your every breath and act. You are DEFINING faith for your children. So what are they hearing and learning? With your behavior—much more important than your words—what do you proving that you have faith in?

When you complain about the inconveniences and injustices of life, you teach your children that you have faith in the power of victimhood. You deny faith in the healing power of repentance and in the Atonement. You deny the inalienable right of every soul to make their own choices—including the stupid ones—as they make the inevitable mistakes involved in learning to become like the Savior.
When you allow a child to continue using their phone past the prescribed time, you demonstrate faith that without love and guidance, your child will somehow magically come to know the saving grace of Jesus Christ, despite the overwhelming noise and intrusion of the world into the peace they need, the “peace that passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). When you enable a child in breaking the Laws of Happiness, you teach them a false version of the Atonement, agency, and mercy.
When you get irritated at your children, you teach faith in the divine, healing power of anger, which is faith in a lie.

And on it goes. Every day most of us demonstrate and teach faith in principles that are not true. And that is actually NOT faith, because even though Paul told the Hebrews that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for,” (Hebrews 11:1) Alma added that with faith “you hope for things that are not seen and are TRUE.” (Alma 32:21)

We can only have genuine faith in the truth. When we have faith in principles that are not true—those we just mentioned being but a small sampling—that is called WISHING. In fact, it’s vain and foolish wishing, or a desire for magic, as opposed to the miracles that accompany real faith.

Every day you have opportunities to teach real faith. For example:

You experience an unexpected reversal or injustice at work. Instead of complaining, you think of your trust that if you continue to be loyal and hard-working, you will continue to be happy with your work.
You experience an illness, but instead of complaining or worrying or both, you express your gratitude for every breath you take, every breath that God gives you. (Mosiah 2:21)
Your family experiences a death, or you lose your job, or some other “disaster” occurs. You do what you can to deal with the crisis, you take the next steps, but you are not discouraged nor do you wallow in grieving. You are mindful that the Lord is with you always, and you express your gratitude for that.

Let’s look at a highly practical and real-life example of teaching faith:

Ryan comes home after the first day of school, obviously upset. Without words, Mom takes him by the hand and leads him to a chair, where he sits. Mom pulls up another chair and sits opposite him, her knees touching his.

“Tell me about it,” she says gently.

“It’s nothing,” Ryan says.

Mom places her hand on Ryan’s knee and says, “I know it’s not easy for you to talk about, but maybe it will get easier once you start. I’m here to listen.” (The TONE is everything—inviting, not pushy.)

“They teased me.”

“Some kids at school teased you?”

“Yeah.”

It might help you to know that probing for details doesn’t make much difference in situations like this. Ryan might have been teased for being short, tall, fat, thin, new at that school, too smart, making a mistake, whatever. We humans are quite skilled at finding reasons to justify our feeling more powerful or better than someone else.

“So,” Mom says, “would you say that they loved you? Or they didn’t?”

“They didn’t,” he says with tones of hurt and irritation.

“I think you’re right. They didn’t love you, and they don’t now. That never feels very good. Do I love you?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you pretty sure?”

Tears are running down Ryan’s face as he nods his head.

“You can be pretty sure that I love you. You have lots of evidence, and you have FAITH that I love you, even when you’re at school away from me. You have faith in something you can’t see right in front of you. You have chosen to believe that it’s true that I love you. You’ve made a powerful choice.”

Ryan continues nodding.

“Do I know you pretty well? Do I know who you really are? Do I know your gifts and your flaws?”

“Yeah.”

“So I KNOW YOU and love you. And I wouldn’t lie to you about loving you. You’re a good person, a joy in my life. Those are facts, so there is only one reason in the world that the kids at school would NOT love you: They don’t KNOW you. You see that?”

More nodding.

“They’re not bad kids. They just feel empty and unloved, so they use you for a feeling of power and control. To them you’re just an object to be used. They don’t know you or care about you. They don’t know HOW to see you or love you, so what is their opinion of you worth?”

Ryan shrugs his shoulders.

“Nothing,” Mom says. “Not a thing. My love for you is WAY more important (she extends her arms as far apart as possible) than their opinion. You can carry my love around with you all day and remember it when foolish people tease you. Your faith in my love will keep you strong and happy. Does that make sense to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Does God love you?”

A shrug of Ryan’s shoulders indicates some doubt about that question.

“Look into my eyes, son,” Mom says. “Even though you can’t see Him sitting in front of you like I am right now, I promise you with all my heart that He sees you. He sees you while you’re being teased, and He loves you. He loves the kids who are teasing you too, but they’re too busy trying to look tough and cool to FEEL His love. But YOU can. You can trust that God loves you perfectly. Your Heavenly Father watches over you even more closely than I do, and He loves you more perfectly than I do. He NEVER gets tired of loving you.”

Nodding.

“So the next time somebody teases you, you put your hand on your heart and remember to say this to yourself: ‘My Dad and Mom love me. God loves me. Some people don’t know how to love me, and that doesn’t matter so much to me.’ Can you do that?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s still no fun to be teased, but when you remember my love and God’s love, that’s called faith, and your faith will make you stronger. You won’t feel so alone.”

She holds out her hand, Ryan places his in hers, and she gently pulls him into her embrace. He hangs onto her for longer than she might have thought possible.

Then she follows up the next day and the next to see how the experiment (Alma 32) with remembering her love and God’s love is going. This is teaching faith. It’s a lot more than words.

In practical ways Mom taught Ryan what Elder Uchtdorf said: “Open your hearts to our Savior and Redeemer, no matter your circumstances, trials, sufferings or mistakes; you can know that He lives, that He loves you, and because of Him, you will never be alone.” (Liahona Nov 2021)

Many years ago I conducted a seminar about unconditional love with a group of men in recovery from various addictions. Their pain was obvious. At a break, one man came up to me on the stage, where I was seated on a stool. He said, “I’ve been waiting all my life to hear words like these.” He began to weep and said, “But where will I find someone to love me like that?”

I took him by the hand and gently pulled him close to me, standing and wrapping my arms around him as clung to me mightily. “I love you,” I whispered in his ear. He sobbed with his “soul relieved”—in his words. He could feel by the Spirit the love I felt for him, a tiny reflection of the Savior’s love for both him and me.

Years later I received a call at home from a woman announcing herself as the head nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at a hospital some distance away. “I’m calling on behalf of Mr. Mark Jones,” she said. “He probably has only hours to live, and he has asked me to request that you would come to see him.”

I had no memory of this man, but I was not about to ignore a man’s dying wish, so I drove to the hospital and walked into his room. He was obviously mortally ill. As I stood at his bedside, he told me the story I just related, identifying himself as the man I had held in my arms. “Before I die,” he said, “I want to feel loved like that one more time.”

Mark had detected the scent of his heavenly home, much like the salmon I described earlier, and he wanted one last taste in this world before moving on to the next. I moved aside the many tubes draped around his body, climbed up into his narrow hospital bed with him, and held him for some time.

Again by the Spirit, he felt my love for him, and I could feel by the Spirit that he felt God’s love too. He exercised the faith of a child. (Mosiah 3:19) His fears palpably evaporated, and he felt peaceably prepared to leave this world. I returned home, and hours later received the call from the hospital confirming his death.

Despite my obvious mortal weakness, I taught faith to this man as I embraced him the first time at a seminar. I showed him my faith in the atoning love of Jesus Christ, even though I didn’t use the name of the Savior while loving him. And he felt the love of God as I first held him because he had faith also. He had faith again as I held him in his last moments of life.

We never know how and when we will have opportunities to act on our own faith and in the process teach the true nature of faith to others. With our children these opportunities present daily.

Practical Power of Faith

We know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the greatest single act or event in the history of all the universe. We know that it’s essential to our salvation—and mortal happiness. But children have a difficult time identifying with “greatest act” or “in all the universe.”

How can we explain to our children the practical power of faith in the Atonement right now, not just faith in the power of the Atonement at the judgment or the resurrection or any form of “someday?” How can we “speak to them according to their language and their understanding,” as Nephi says the Lord God does with us? (2 Nephi 31:3) If we speak to them in words and concepts that don’t reach their hearts, they learn nothing, and—just as likely—we can succeed in driving them away.

When I was a freshman college student, I studied chemistry and learned about the properties of a variety of molecules. One day I was randomly approached on campus to participate in a psychology experiment. While I never learned the intent of the study, I do remember that I was asked to plunge my hand and arm into a bucket of ice water until I found the pain unbearable.

The water was certainly very cold, but I knew from my studies that if water was liquid, it couldn’t possibly be colder than 32 degrees, which is warmer than the 28 degrees required to injure human tissue. Having faith in what I had learned about chemistry and tissue damage, I knew I could not be injured, so my fear of the water vanished. It was still cold but rendered relatively painless solely because of my faith in what I had learned. I reasoned that it couldn’t injure me, so what’s the big deal? The graduate student doing the study eventually gave up waiting. Science has since confirmed that without fear and stress, we actually FEEL LESS pain, or even no pain.

Only minutes ago I told you the story of Ryan and his mother, where she taught him to have faith in her and in God. Subsequent to the events I described, she continued to teach Ryan about the infinite power of the Atonement, which—conditioned on his faith and obedience—would guarantee him eternal life, a reward far greater than the approval of every possible friend at school or for the rest of his life. She said, “You can worry now about the occasional dollar you might earn by conforming to other people, or you can live for the billion dollars that Christ will pour on your head now and forever.”

Ryan got that metaphor and chose to have faith in his mother and in the Atonement, and at one point he said, “Mom, I kind of feel like nobody can hurt me now.”

THAT is the practical and immediate power of the Atonement in our lives. It gives us comfort and power NOW. In his last General Conference talk, Elder Richard G. Scott said, “The Atonement of Jesus Christ makes it possible to endure [all our] challenges. I testify that as we actively come unto Him, we can endure every temptation, every heartache, every challenge we face.” (Ensign Nov 2014) Little Ryan learned that, and so can your children.

As Ryan’s mother taught him, you can teach your children that as we embrace the infinite power of Christ, which proceeds “forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space,” (D&C 88:12, 6-7) we become like Him. If we parents can be an example of connecting to that power, and can teach it to our children, they can feel one with the Father and the Son, just as Christ prayed to the Father that we all might feel one with them. (John 17: 21)

As we teach our children faith, we give them a way to feel, well, invincible. That is no small matter.

Increasing Faith

To this point I have discussed mostly illustrations of faith, examples of faith, and the effects of faith. Now I will briefly outline some ways to increase our faith. Some of these you know, some you don’t, and some you will learn in a new way.

1. Pray

First, talk with your Heavenly Father. Notice that I didn’t call this conversation “prayer,” because when we use that word, we think we know what we’re talking about. Generally, we do not. Oh, we’re quite accomplished at talking TO Him. We tend to settle into our own personal and group formulas for addressing Him, but then we leave out the important part: listening. When I communicate with my Father in heaven, I remember that He knows a gazillion times more than I do, so exactly why would I be speaking at all? I don’t speak much. Mostly I listen, with an ongoing expression of gratitude for blessings I’m sure I don’t see the hundredth part of.

Listen for what? For Him to fill our souls with the Spirit: with words, thoughts, ideas, peace, feelings. And all that is called revelation, which we’ll be discussing in much greater detail later in this chapter. I assert that the primary reason for prayer is not to receive specific answers, although I testify of the value of those and of their potential frequency as we familiarize ourselves with His voice.

No, primarily we listen to Him to FEEL Him, to unite with the Creator of the universe, to prepare to become like Him as we grow familiar with Him. And THIS is what increases our faith in Him and our desire to follow Him. Faith is required to pray in the first place, and His presence in response vastly expands the boundaries of our faith.

Teach all this to your children. Teach them the occasions when you have felt His peace and presence. Describe these events in as much detail as you can. They will learn more from these conversations than from any number of scriptures recited in Primary and seminary.

2. CHOOSE

The second way to increase faith:

Make a deliberate choice to believe in Jesus Christ—to trust Him, listen to Him, follow Him. Teach your children about making that choice. That sounds obvious, but it’s not. Most people don’t begin with a conscious choice. We just hope our belief will happen because it’s SUPPOSED to, because we’ve been commanded to or told that it’s desirable.

But we must understand that we tend to walk the path we choose, to whatever degree real choice is possible, as we discussed in Chapter Three. So, our initial choice is very powerful because we have a strong confirmation bias, which means that we tend to gather information to support whatever we have chosen to be true. If we choose to believe in Christ, we will tend to notice more the evidence from the Spirit of His love and guidance.

If, on the other hand, we don’t make a conscious choice to believe in Christ and follow Him, we are still making a choice—conscious or not—a choice NOT to follow Him, and we’ll tend to gather evidence that not following Him is not essential to our happiness. We’ll gather evidence that doing things our way is “good enough.” We WILL conclude that our way makes us briefly “happy,” which really means superficially satisfied with praise, power, pleasure, and safety. And doing things “our way” usually really means—ironically—following the ways of other people, notably the great number of people who call to us from the great and spacious building. Or we follow the people who wander in the mists of darkness. If we don’t know what real love and happiness are, we are far more likely to fall for the deceptions of the world, to settle for that superficial satisfaction, and not to choose to believe in Jesus Christ.

I’m suggesting that we choose simply to conduct an experiment, as Alma suggested (Alma 32). We teach our children to choose to plant a seed of belief—to believe in your words and in the words of God as revealed through His prophets—and then simply OBSERVE the results. What is there to lose?

If they choose to follow Christ, they will notice more the whisperings of the Spirit, which we’ll discuss later in this chapter. They will notice the feelings of peace that come from being loving and responsible. And you will help them identify the results of that experiment because on their own they tend to miss this early evidence, which is both subtle and new to them.

If your children choose to believe in the healing power of social media, pleasure, and other distractions of the world, we already KNOW where those choices go. Yes, they lead to fun, and to spectacular parties in the great and spacious building, but everybody knows that such parties ALWAYS END. Then we go home, hung over and carrying with us nothing of substance or meaning, while somebody cleans up the mess, and nothing has changed. We can teach our children to experiment with a seed that grows into a tree and then an orchard shared with everyone around them.

3. ACT

The Third way to build our faith is to act on it. Christ taught that if we want to know the truth of the Father’s doctrine—if we want to increase our faith—we have to DO it. (John 7:16-17) If you want to know what it’s like to be physically fit, first you have to make that choice (we just talked about that), and then you have to exercise. You cannot know the feeling of fitness until you’ve followed the principles attached to it—which involve taking ACTION on what you learn. You can’t know what it’s like to play the piano until you’ve practiced—a lot.

We cannot know what faith really feels like until we act on our faith, which would include prayer, reading the scriptures, partaking of the sacrament, serving others, forgiving others, letting go of resentments, loving those who treat us unfairly, and much more. Teach your children that life is one grand experiment, and that there is no way to know what is possible until we really, really get involved. We can’t know the energy and fulfillment of LIVING if our primary actions are to play on our phones, chat on social media, and play video games. I’m NOT saying those other choices are always bad, only that they distract us from the great experiment of life, which then leads to eternal life if we genuinely choose faith and act.

We also know that the most obvious action flowing from faith is to keep the commandments, but simple obedience is not enough—as we discussed at length in Chapter One. Compliance with commandments that is driven by obligation or guilt or tradition leads us only to become—not become like, but BECOME—the Pharisees of our day. Acting from faith is a powerful thing to see and to do. It involves actions that are done eagerly, willingly, with full heart and conviction. Until our children are being obedient and responsible and loving willingly, their actions are, in the words of Paul, like a noisy bell, with no substance. (1 Corinthians 13:1)

In Chapter Five we talked about how the love of Ammon led the father of king Lamoni—king of all Lamanite kings—to listen to the teaching of Ammon’s brother Aaron about the plan of salvation, repentance, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ. It is important to note that the king had NO interest in the scriptures until first he saw and felt the love of Ammon, then Aaron.

After listening to Aaron with faith, the Lamanite king immediately acted on his faith, and proclaimed the word of God to those around him. And he opened up every synagogue and home in the land for the teaching of Ammon and his missionary brethren. By the thousands, people were converted by love, the word of God, and the Spirit.

Those who were not converted to the gospel became angry—how often have we heard this story from victims in and outside the scriptures?—and they gathered an army to kill the converts.

But there was “not one soul among all the those converted to the Lord who would take up arms against their brethren.” (Alma 24:6) In fact, they buried their swords and weapons as a further act of faith, and took upon themselves a special name, Anti-Nephi-Lehi.

When the Lamanite armies did come, the converted people of God went out to meet them, threw themselves on the ground, and called on God. The Lamanites began to kill them with swords, and a thousand died where they lay. (Alma 24:21-2)

These people of God did exactly what we’ve talked about here to increase faith. They (1) prayed, they (2) chose to believe, and then (3) they proved their choice by acting in accordance with their faith. They immediately and FULLY acted on their faith by burying their weapons and refusing to do anything that would lead them back to their old lives. In their case it was swords they buried, but in our day it might be our phones, our anger, our video games, our complaining.

And by acting on their faith, what was the result? Mormon says, “of all the Lamanites [converted to] the truth through the preaching of Ammon and his brethren ... not one ever fell away” from the church. (Alma 23:6) Almost impossible to imagine, but they did all that was required to strengthen their faith in Jesus Christ, and we can do the same: Choose faith in Christ, pray for the Spirit, and act on it, and your faith will grow. Choose eternal life, and then put away the distractions of the world, along with your protecting Behaviors, and your faith will give you the power to move rivers that otherwise would drown you and your children.

Teach this story of the people of Ammon to your children.

Teach them that as we act on our faith, with full heart not minimal compliance, our faith grows. We find ourselves on the path to the tree of life and from there into the arms of our Heavenly Parents.

It is NOT enough just for our children to reluctantly put down their phones, for example, when they’re told to. Obedience alone is not the goal of life.

It takes faith for us to be willingly obedient to the laws of heaven. Then our eager, willing obedience—the action that follows faith—leads to even greater faith. This becomes a cycle that propels us forward to take our place at Christ’s side as His children, as heirs, “even joint-heirs” (Romans 8:16-17) with Him to inherit “all that the father has.” (D&C 84:33)

Let’s not miss the point here. It’s very unlikely that your children will ever have to lie down and be killed by the swords of their enemies. But they CAN still do what the Lamanites did. Which was what? The Lamanites “took their swords, and all the weapons which were used for the shedding of man’s blood, and they buried them up deep in the earth.” (Alma 24:17)

But that’s the specifics—swords, bury in the ground. What did they really do, generally speaking? They buried—they completely gave up—anything that would interfere with their faith and their commitment to their covenant with Christ. They gave up their Protecting Behaviors and their addictions, and this is what we all must sacrifice—including our children—if we want to be worthy to be gathered as His lambs. If your child is addicted to ANYTHING—anger, arguing, people pleasing, their appearance, having “things,” whining, unkindness, controlling, drugs, their phone, whatever—it must be abandoned and thoroughly buried. And we must have the courage to help them do that. We must BE an example of that faith. We must have the faith and courage NOT to fear their disapproval, which is exactly where most parents fold and give in to their children’s destructive behaviors.

The Lamanite king expressed his gratitude that they had been brought to a knowledge of their sins, and he said, “I thank God that he has allowed us to repent, and has forgiven us of our many sins, and taken away the guilt from our hearts, through the virtues of his Son. And because it has taken all our strength to repent and become clean from the stain, let us stain our swords no more, for fear that if we did stain our swords again, they might never become washed bright again through the atonement of the blood of the Son of God.” (Alma 24:6, 10-15)

THIS is a perfect description of giving up our sins, our addictions, and our Protecting Behaviors. This is how we truly act on and demonstrate and strengthen our faith. We give up our sins and bury them away where we cannot easily access them again—just as the Lamanites did here.

Our goal is to be happy and live consistent with God’s love, NOT simply to bury weapons and behaviors and addictions. Life is that we might know joy, so we CAN have fun, but we cannot walk the celestial path as long as we are affected even by the temptation to use our addictions and unloving behaviors. That is why the Lamanites didn’t just promise not to use their swords. No, they BURIED them deep in the earth, so they wouldn’t even be tempted to use them.

Now, are WE willing to bury—or eliminate—all our swords and weapons? All our obstacles and distractions? Are WE willing to eliminate our anger, our complaining, our victimhood, and possibly our phones and video games in order to demonstrate and build our faith? If so, our faith in Jesus Christ will grow, and we will flourish, in this life and in the world to come.

Next step in building our faith.

4. Study

We’ve all been told uncounted times that if we read the scriptures, our faith will grow. Yes. And No. When somebody’s faith is already weak, reading scripture can actually confuse, irritate, and drive people away, as we have seen in uncounted cases with youth who have taken seminary and gone on missions but then left the Church. I have spoken with a great number of them to confirm their experience with the scriptures.

Remember the reference we read in Chapter One: Not long after the resurrection of the Savior, Philip encountered an Ethiopian man who was reading Isaiah while sitting in his chariot. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” The Ethiopian responded, “How can I without someone to guide me?” So Philip read with him and guided him, and afterward the Ethiopian was baptized and received the cleansing power of the Holy Ghost. (Acts 8:26-40)

The Ethiopian was reading the scriptures, but until he received love and guidance from a person, the words on the page alone were not promoting his faith. This is almost universally true with our children too.

We need to read the scriptures in a way that they come alive for our children, in a way that promotes faith rather than simple compliance with the instruction to “study the scriptures.” Or we’ll drive them away, or turn them into Pharisees.

Let me give you a random example of a verse I was reading the other day. Perhaps I was impressed that even though the Savior is being quoted, the verse is not clear and not inherently faith-promoting. Remember, Christ didn’t write any of His words. Others did. As I quote this verse now, listen to the words for yourself AND keep in your mind how a child would hear this verse.

In 3 Nephi 16:4, Christ is quoted as saying, “And I command you that ye shall write these sayings after I am gone, that if it so be that my people at Jerusalem, they who have seen me and been with me in my ministry, do not ask the Father in my name, that they may receive a knowledge of you by the Holy Ghost, and also of the other tribes whom they know not of, that these sayings which ye shall write shall be kept and shall be manifested unto the Gentiles, that through the fulness of the Gentiles, the remnant of their seed, who shall be scattered forth upon the face of the earth because of their unbelief, may be brought in, or may be brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer.”

I’ve read the Book of Mormon a great many times, and taught seminary and institute classes on the subject, and this verse is not a smooth read. Rarely is our faith increased by something difficult to understand. I can’t begin to count the number of people I have spoken to who have given up on reading the Book of Mormon after the first several chapters, confused by “the most correct of any book on the earth,” according to Joseph Smith, a book that restores those “plain and precious” truths removed from the record of the Jews. (1 Nephi 13:35, 40)

But you can avoid that confusion for your children. You can TEACH them in even plainer and simpler terms what the scriptures teach, as Philip did for the Ethiopian. You can, for example, teach your children this one verse, rather than just reading it, or you could read it as is, and then teach them what it means.

This is one example—hardly definitive—of explaining this verse to children of a wide range in ages. I read now in plainer language the same nearly-incomprehensible verse from 3 Nephi:

“The Jews might not ask the Father about you. But they need to know about you and about me, their Redeemer, so you will write my words so that in the last days the Jews can read them.” (3 Nephi 16:4) The first version was 126 words, written in one tortured, run-on sentence, while the second was 38 words, with simplified structure and grammar that omits no saving principle significant to anyone but gospel scholars.

Then you can teach your children how in this verse you can FEEL the love of the Savior as He makes sure that His visit to America, and His words spoken there, will be written, kept, and brought to the house of Israel in the last days, even though they have been scattered over the face of the earth. THAT is the point of this verse, that He loves us all and wants us to have His gospel. Describe how you can feel his eagerness to bring salvation to all His children, and that your faith in Him as your Redeemer is increased by your feeling His love for all of Israel: in Jerusalem, in the Americas, and scattered over all the earth.

As you read the MESSAGE of the scriptures, in addition to the actual words, and as you share your feelings that come from the Spirit as you read, the scriptures will come alive for your children. They’ll be interested, rather than dreading the words, “It’s time for scripture study.”

Next step in building our faith:

5. Gratitude

We mentioned gratitude at the end of Chapter One, and in the next chapter we’ll talk about how to teach it to our children. For now, just know that when we CHOOSE to be grateful for our obvious and abundant blessings, as described by king Benjamin, we feel closer to our Father in heaven, from whom these blessings come. Our FAITH in Him is greatly increased as we are actively aware of His love for us, and awareness is the essence of gratitude. The opposite of gratitude is whining, complaining, and victimhood, which make faith and happiness impossible.

Next step in building faith:

6. Forgiveness.

To harbor resentment, to withhold forgiveness to another, is to refuse faith that God’s justice is perfect. Resentment is not to trust that “God will prevail,” as President Nelson likes to say.

If we harbor bitterness toward anyone in our life—no matter how justified we might feel—we cannot have faith in Him and His infinite atonement. Choosing to forgive IS an act of faith, and actually forgiving yields feelings from the Spirit that immediately confirm our faith, which then grows even more. As we choose to forgive, our faith is magnified and will benefit us in ways we cannot imagine until we actually forgive.

7. Repent and keep the commandments

Repentance is perhaps the greatest demonstration of our faith, and in a minute we’re going to talk much more about teaching repentance. We repent or change only because we have faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ, faith that by repenting we really can be washed clean of our sins and imperfections. We also demonstrate faith that Christ spoke the truth when he promised us, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” (John 14:2) Without faith in that eternal reward, and faith that this mortal life is always happier when we repent, we would not forsake our sins.

Tell Your Children About Growing Your Own Faith

Before we leave the subject of teaching faith to our children, I make one last recommendation. No scripture or conference talk on faith will have the impact on your children that they will feel when you talk about YOUR experiences with faith.

Tell them about an occasion when faith led to external success for you. One father described to his son Todd how there was a time not long before when he had to make a choice between paying tithing and paying the electric and water bills for their home. He could hardly imagine explaining to Todd why there were no lights, no wi-fi, and no running water, so he considered paying the bills and “catching up” on his tithing later.

But father remembered making a commitment to remember and keep the Lord’s commandments, and he remembered the many promises made by God and His servants about paying tithing, and he read some of them to Todd. Father paid his tithing and prayed for help with the bills. Two days before the payments were due, Father received a check in the mail from a man who had owed him some money for years, money that Father had long ago given up on ever receiving. This unanticipated check made it possible for Father to pay both tithing and his worldly obligations. He felt from the Spirit that this money was a blessing that had resulted from his faith, and he told Todd about this feeling.

But also be sure to tell your children about an occasion when faith did NOT lead to external success, or what the world would call a “mission accomplished.” One mother told her daughter Melissa about the recent illness of her mother. She was gravely ill, and the family fasted and prayed for her. She received a priesthood blessing. But she died.

Mother said, “Melissa, of course we wanted Grandma to stay with us, but I’ll never forget that when I prayed for her to live, without consciously thinking about it I also prayed with even greater faith that my mother and I would feel God’s love for us. And I felt His love and peace. So did Grandma. I believe I will remember that feeling more strongly than the gratitude I would have felt if she had lived.”

President Nelson said, “It takes faith to plead for the life of a loved one and even more faith to accept a disappointing answer.” (Liahona May 2021)

President Nelson also described a trip he made to the Polynesian islands two years before, where each island had experienced heavy rains for days. He said, “Members had fasted and prayed that their outdoor meetings would be protected from the rain. In Samoa, Fiji, and Tahiti, just as the meetings began, the rain stopped. But in Tonga, the rain did not stop. Yet 13,000 faithful Saints came hours early to get a seat, waited patiently through a steady downpour, and then sat through a very wet two‑hour meeting. We saw vibrant faith at work among each of those islanders—faith sufficient to stop the rain and faith to persevere when the rain did not stop. The mountains in our lives do not always move how or when we would like. But our faith will always propel us forward. Faith always increases our access to godly power.” (Liahona May 2021)

Share your humorous experiences with faith. I shared this experience with my children: Many years ago I was the Varsity Scout leader and adult advisor of the teacher’s quorum. One Sunday evening I was taking boys home after an evening leadership meeting, a circuit that extended more than a hundred miles as I deposited them at doorsteps scattered over the large Texas county.

On the way home, with two boys left, I suddenly noticed that the gas tank was almost empty, and when I commented on it, one of the boys said, “Brother Baer, have faith. God wouldn’t let you run out of gas while you’re out doing his errand.”

First I smiled at his remembrance of a lesson where I had talked about being on the Lord’s errand (Jacob 1:17; D&C 64:29). Then I said, “I have faith that God will love and support me while He keeps the laws of the universe and expects the same from me. I MEANT to fill the tank yesterday, as I almost always do, but I didn’t. I have faith that He will support me emotionally and spiritually, but filling the tank was up to me. He doesn’t tend to rescue people who foolishly fail to prepare.”

Sure enough, I ran out of gas, about a mile from a convenience store that sold gas. The boys cheerfully suggested that the Lord wouldn’t hesitate to support my buying gas on the Sabbath, what with me doing the Lord’s work and all. But I told them, “I have complete faith that the Lord will bless me in many ways if I keep the Sabbath day holy, which for me would not include buying gas.” We left the car on the side of the road and walked home.

From this experience and others like it, my faith in God grew. No matter how many mistakes I made, He continued to love and guide me. And I grew in faith that I could count on God to keep and administer universal laws. I grew in faith as I watched him consistently set an example for me. I learned that I could count on Him to be consistent and loving. You’ll find similar lessons to teach your children.

Teach your children that life can be difficult. Faith can be difficult. Tell them about the times when your faith has wavered, and you felt lost. Tell them how you regained your faith. Children need to know that faith can waiver without them being faithless or bad. Tell them how Peter leaped out of the boat to walk on the water to Jesus, and then, when he focused on the wind and the waves, his faith began to fade, and he began to sink beneath the waves. But he recovered his faith, and continued to build it steadily, using the steps we’ve talked about in this chapter. He became the first among Christ’s apostles, eventually sacrificing his life in faith.

Your lessons in faith are enormously influential and uplifting.

Mark complained to his father that he didn’t enjoy his friends at school. Dad’s temptation was to leap in and describe how to find friends, which is rarely effective because such advice ignores the underlying problem of the child’s fears.

Dad had faith that being truthful and vulnerable mattered more than describing “friend-finding” techniques. He said, “Mark, I didn’t have many friends in school either. I tried to be like them—to earn their friendship—but that didn’t work. So I prayed about it, and I realized that maybe these weren’t the friends I needed. So I chose to have faith in God, that He was always there for me, and that he would teach me through this experience. I chose not to push for friends but to learn to simply become a better person by trusting God and by praying and feeling His love. Because I had faith in Jesus Christ and felt His love, I didn’t feel alone. That changed everything.”

Dad continued: “Two things happened. First, over the years I saw what happened to the boys whose friendship I had wanted. More and more, they lived in ways that are not consistent with the gospel, and if I had continued to try to be their friend, it’s almost certain that I would have wandered away from the truth with them.

“Second, as I stayed faithful in the gospel, I found a FEW friends like me. It wasn’t like the popularity I had once hoped for, but these friends were real. Because I was being true to myself and trusting in God, I attracted these few friends who were also faithful. I stayed friends with them for a long time, and they made a positive difference in my life. So instead of pushing for ‘friends,’ I had faith that if I kept doing the right thing, I’d find different friends, better friends for me, and that is what happened.”

TEACHING REPENTANCE

We just talked about repentance and keeping the commandments as a way to increase our faith. Now let’s discuss more specifically how to teach repentance to our children.

Everybody knows that we need to repent. Surely we don’t need to prove that, but just in case, in these latter days, Christ said, “Say nothing but repentance to this generation; keep my commandments ...” (D&C 6:9; 11:9)

This is a perfect expression of the importance and urgency of our need to repent, a commandment found in at least two hundred scripture references that I could easily find before I figured the point had been made.

It is also one of uncounted expressions by the Lord that I would describe as “pithy,” meaning brief and to the point. But in the moments when we speak in that abbreviated way, we can’t address everything about a subject, only one aspect of it. We can’t be pithy and thorough or exhaustive at the same time.

In other words, sometimes God speaks like a marketer. He uses brief sentences or phrases—sound bites—intended to grab our attention and focus our souls firmly on a single point, in such a way that we are genuinely changed by hearing it.

Being pithy is a great teaching tool. I have learned myself as a teacher that if you can’t say a thing in only a few sentences—maybe one sentence—you probably don’t understand it. Most people are capable of intensively, incisively listening only to brief messages, and then their mind backs off a little—or tunes out entirely—followed by tuning back in for the next sound bite. As a speaker, I generally assume that the most diligent listeners in an audience are probably digesting 10-15% of what I’m saying. That’s not an insult, just a fact of human nature, proven in an endless line of speaking to classes and congregations.

God often makes a statement in a way that communicates a particular emphasis or feeling or perspective about a principle, while omitting a thorough exposition of the entire principle because His intended message or perspective of that moment would be lost in too many words—just as a particularly beautiful tree can literally disappear if surrounded by other trees.

At the beginning of the restoration, the Savior wanted to emphasize the strong need for His disciples to focus on repentance, and that emphasis would have been lost if He had embellished “Say nothing but repentance” with a thorough explanation of agency, responsibility, justice, mercy, and, say, the entire lineage from Adam to Abraham and his sons just to illustrate how many generations had been taught repentance. With all that additional information, the intended focus of preaching repentance at the opening of the restoration would have been lost.

Now I will suggest just three additional elements of repentance, each of which was intentionally left out of the simple “Repent and keep my commandments,” and each designed to help you more effectively TEACH YOUR CHILDREN about the subject. When I say something is “left out” of a verse, I emphasize that I’m not saying the Savior somehow forgot the whole principle. No, He just presented it from one perspective, and He expects US to “search the scriptures” to put it all together. (Alma 21:1; Alma 33:2; 3 Nephi 20:11; 3 Nephi 23:1)

Let’s look at these missing elements.

First element missing in “Preach only repentance and keep my commandments”

1. TONE and context.

When most people use the word repent, they do an unloving imitation of Samuel the Lamanite on the wall of the city, where they stomp their feet and speak in a tone that communicates these messages:

You MUST repent, RIGHT NOW (tone), because
You’re defective
You’re bad
God is angry with you

As absolute proof of this, I have spoken with thousands of youth and adults who visibly flinch at the very mention of the word “repent.”

Do we NEED to repent? Duh. Of course. Repentance is an absolute requirement in the application of the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives.

AND

There is far more to repentance than “you MUST.”

Gift of repentance

President Monson said, “Although it is imperative that we choose wisely, there are times when we WILL make foolish choices. The gift of repentance, provided by our Savior, enables us to correct our course settings, that we might return to the path which will lead us to that celestial glory we seek.” (Ensign Jan 2018)

Repentance is a gift. Without it we could never reunite with those Eternal Parents who made our lives possible. Nearly every day, I am grateful that I can go outside and work in the dirt, mud, leaves, sticks, and rocks, and after becoming thoroughly filthy and even uncomfortable with the layers of slime and debris, I can wash it all off with an indoor river of clean water, with the help of a little soap. And how is repentance any different from this particular physical experience, including the miraculous cleansing of the Atonement’s soap and water, which I cannot create on my own? Feel free to use that metaphor with your children.

Alma teaches us that as "members" of the Lord’s Church, we “mourn with those that mourn" and "bear one another's burdens that they be light" and "comfort those that stand in need of comfort." (Mosiah 18:8-9) Is there any doubt that the Savior does the same with us? Does He not mourn with us, bear our burdens, and comfort us? And He does all this WHILE we’re repenting—before the process is complete. He does not withhold His love and compassion UNTIL we have repented. In fact, without His love and support, how could we be motivated to repent? How could we shoulder the pain of it alone?

All our lives, we have encountered people who have attempted to control us by insisting that we do things THEIR way—follow their rules, agree with their opinions, and more. Often our children hear that tone when the Savior says, “keep MY commandments”—just another person demanding that HE is right and they are wrong until they do it HIS way. But no, no, this is not what the Savior means, and we must teach them that.

Human beings insist on their way to benefit THEMSELVES—to get power, control, wealth, and more. Christ talks about HIS way and His commandments only because His way happens to be THE way. He is God not because He created or gave the law. He is God precisely because He LEARNED the way, He has LIVED the way, He has seen the joy and glory of the way. And He wants to share that joy with us. He does that by teaching us the laws by which HE lives, and by offering us the Atonement, a gift far beyond our ability to understand, which bridges the gap between our simple compliance with the law and our worthiness to accept eternal life.

Yes, I just said that Christ is God because He follows the way, or the law, or the commandments. Alma proves that when he describes repentance as an eternal principle and condition required to enable mercy to satisfy the demands of justice without destroying it. And he said that these were eternal laws that even God could not ignore, or He “would cease to be God.” (Alma 42:12, 25)

God gives us commandments as blessings, as rewards for our faith, to enable us to further act on our faith (as referred to earlier in this chapter). He has said, “Blessed are they ... who have obeyed my gospel ... And they will be rewarded with blessings from above, even with many commandments and revelations. (D&C 59:3-4)

Imagine thinking of the commandments—and repentance—as BLESSINGS and rewards for our faith. They protect us. We often speak of the punishments or consequences that come from breaking the law, but living BY the law also protects us. Nephi referred to God’s word when he said, “Whoever holds tightly to it will never perish, nor can the temptations and the deadly arrows of Satan make them blind, to lead them away to destruction.” (1 Nephi 15:24)

THIS is the perspective our children need, that the laws of God are not restrictive but PROTECTIVE and empowering. Those who follow the law can’t be deceived and destroyed. They don’t suddenly find themselves afraid and lost and confused, torn from the path that leads to the tree of life. They are FREER, just as a train is freer when it stays on the track, rather than exploring its own way through the fields or woods.

Christ refers to HIS commandments only because the phrase “MY commandments” is infinitely more personal, more direct, more connecting, and more FAITH-promoting, which we just talked about in the previous section. We connect to Christ—and increase our faith in Him who has offered us His Atonement—far better when we follow HIM and HIS commandments than if we simply follow “THE law.” As a brief illustration, look at the difference in genuine devotion and connection experienced when saying “the law of MOSES” compared with saying “the love and guidance of Jesus Christ, Savior of the world.” Convey THAT to your children.

Second missing element in “Repent and keep commandments”

2. When God tells us to focus on repentance and keeping His commandments, we READ it incompletely. How so?

We tend to read “commandments” as outward acts, like “pay tithing, go to church, keep the Word of Wisdom, don’t exceed the speed limit, stay on the sidewalk and off the grass.”

When we read “keep the commandments,” we strongly tend to BECOME the Pharisees, hoping that we can simply check things off a list that will BUY us a ticket into heaven. I wish I were guessing or exaggerating here, but I hear expressions of this sentiment every day from Saints around the world, and it’s a natural human tendency, NOT a Church problem.

We ARE the wealthy young man who approached the Savior and said, paraphrasing,

“I’ve heard you talk about this eternal life thing. I want that. What do I have to do to get it?”

He was looking for the LEAST he could do, AND hoping that what he’d already done would qualify him.

And Jesus said, “Keep the commandments.”

The man said, “Which ones?” again looking for the minimum list he could complete to purchase a ticket to eternal life. (Much like our children look for the least they can do in completing an assigned task)

Jesus played along and said, “Don’t murder, or commit adultery, or steal, or lie. Honor your parents and love your neighbor.”

The young man said—obviously ignoring that last commandment to love his neighbor—“But I’ve done all that all my life. What else do I need to do?”

Jesus said, “If you want to be whole—complete—sell everything you have and give it to the poor. Look for eternal treasures, and come follow me.”

The man went away sad, because he wasn’t willing to give up his great wealth. (Matthew 19:16-22) He proved that he could follow a list of external commandments, but he was discouraged that what Jesus required was a real change in heart. Bummer. He had to prove his professed faith by living on a higher plane than simply dutiful compliance, as we discussed earlier in this chapter.

The wealthy man’s interest in repenting stopped when he learned that he’d truly have to learn to love, just one evidence of which would be his willingness to feed the poor—to care about them—rather than enjoy the praise, power, and pleasure of his wealth. He would have to bury his toys deep in the earth, just as the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi did with their weapons—just as we must all do, including our children, in our own way.

So what are we leaving out of “repent and keep the commandments?” We’re failing to emphasize what the Savior said and what the wealthy man failed to grasp. “Keeping the commandments” includes the greatest one, what Jesus called the “new commandment”: Love. Jesus was not vague on the subject. He said that everything that had ever been written—all the written commandments, which the Jews called the “law and the prophets”—depended on and derived from that one great commandment to LOVE God and each other. (Matthew 22:35-40)

Obedience to the other commandments is not enough. The Jews did that, as we discussed in Chapter Two, and the Savior noted their exact obedience. These people were so obedient that they paid tithes on the HERBS they grew in their gardens, but then He added that they’d missed the point of life entirely, forgetting “weightier matters” of the law, like mercy—which comes from love—and faith. He said they were like painted tombs, pretty on the outside but filled with dead men’s bones. (Matthew 23:23-27)

Third missing element in “Repent and keep commandments”

3. Repent is the English translation of a Greek word that means “to change.”

President Nelson said, “The word for repentance in the Greek New Testament is metanoeo. The prefix meta‑ means “change.” The suffix ‑noeo is related to Greek words that mean “mind,” “knowledge,” “spirit,” and “breath.” (Ensign May 2019)

Notice WHAT is changed—the “noeo” in Greek—and let’s give it a context by remembering what we discussed in Chapter Four: Event ® Judgment ® Feeling ® Reaction

On the whole, we can’t change the events that just happen to us: rain, an unkind word, an injustice. We can TRY to control them, but it’s a fool’s errand.

So what can we change? We can change our JUDGMENTS of an event, which President Nelson called changing our mind and knowledge.

When our Judgment changes, so do our feelings, what President Nelson called our “spirit and breath,” after which our reactions or Choices change. That is repenting.

Our children need to see that repentance is just change, NOT an accusation of their wickedness. The latter perspective makes children feel small and unworthy and unloved, and then they will automatically RUN from whatever causes those feelings—like the word “repent.” They’ll leave the truth, then the Church, and then often they distance themselves from much that is good.

And we must teach our children that the change in repentance MUST be a change for the better. Whatever I change today reveals that what I knew before—or how I acted before—is LESS than what I wanted, less than perfect, less than fully joyful. I can’t really repent unless I’m repairing or rebuilding something that was a MISTAKE to some degree—or at least incomplete.

The short version of what I just said is that we MUST MAKE MISTAKES in the process of learning, changing, and repenting. There is no way around it.

An old quote—variously attributed to several people—says, “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” In short, we learn good judgment from making mistakes. Welcome to life and learning, eh? God KNEW we would make LOTS of mistakes in the process of learning to become like Him. Way lots. And that is WHY He provided—from the very beginning, before the foundation of the world—the gift of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the possibility of repentance that followed.

All but one of my children totaled a car—wrecked it beyond repair. In each case I arrived at the scene and asked TWO questions, with not a trace of anger, as later reported by each of THEM (not just trusting my own assessment of anger or not-anger). I asked, “Are you hurt?” and “What did you learn from this?” One child said, “I learned that I can’t eat a hot dog, sing loudly along with the radio, talk with my friends, point to things out the window, and safely drive a car, all at the same time.” Good lesson. And then each of them took care of all interactions with the insurance company and whatever else had to be done.

The point is not a car. It’s not discipline. It’s not punishment. It’s LEARNING from the mistake. And they all learned. And they felt LOVED WHILE they learned. As we have talked about in previous chapters, if we feel loved while we make mistakes, we become invincible. We lose our pain and fear. We lose our need to protect ourselves, which is by far the greatest source of our sins. So making mistakes, in the presence of love, becomes PERFECTING and joyful, not humiliating, degrading, or confirmation of our unworthiness. Until our children learn this—until we become capable of loving them and teaching them this—they will AVOID repentance and the blessings that attend that great gift.

If you want to teach your children repentance, YOU first have to provide an environment that INVITES repentance, rather than making it frightening and punitive.

With perfect knowledge, the Father and Son know what we’re going through. They know how difficult life can be—in every detail. Christ descended below all things (D&C 88:6) precisely so He could understand us, so He could take upon Himself all our pain and weakness, so He could be “filled with mercy and know how to support us.” (Alma 12:7)

Now, the best part. As we repent, it’s not a TEST to see if we’ll fail and go to jail. No, through the entire process of learning, including the mistakes where we deny God, faith, and the Atonement, He remains always ON OUR SIDE. We’re His children. He WANTS us to live with Him forever. Not just forever, but Eternally—Eternal with capital “E,” which means to live as He lives. (D&C 19:10)

Even in the implied and direct threats associated with disobedience—and there are lots of them, especially in the Old Testament—He is only trying to nudge us back onto the path. Always. In one particularly revealing passage, Christ says, “Every man must repent or suffer ... weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth ... BUT it is not written that there will be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment because Endless (capital E) is my name. I call it eternal or endless damnation because Endless is more expressive (which meant DIRECT in the English of the time Joseph Smith wrote this), so it might work upon the hearts of the children of men.” (D&C 19:4-10)

I don’t know of any other verse in scripture where God leans forward and whispers, “Yeah, sometimes I say stuff kinda loud to motivate you kids because you can be kinda dense.”

The word “repent” has acquired such a harsh meaning that I rarely use it unless I explain all that we’ve talked about here in this chapter. In doing so, I do not diminish in any way the need to repent. Without it God would cease to be God. But I do use it in a way that communicates His love for us in giving us this gift of repentance, which is made possible through the Atoning sacrifice of His Son. In short, He is an unbelievably loving and cool father, and we need to communicate THAT to our children. THAT will build their faith, along with their seeing the love that emanates from YOU to them.

We’re back to love. God’s love for us. Yours for your children. Theirs for each other.

President Uchtdorf said, “There are so many 'shoulds' and 'should nots' that merely keeping track of them can be a challenge ... When the Savior was asked to name the greatest commandment, He did not hesitate: Love.

“Because love is the great commandment, it ought to be at the center of all and everything we do in our own family and everywhere else. Love is the healing balm that repairs rifts in personal and family relationships ... It is the source that overcomes divisiveness and hate. Love is the fire that warms our lives with unparalleled joy and divine hope. Love should be our walk and our talk.

“When we truly understand what it means to love as Jesus Christ loves us, the confusion clears and our priorities align. Our walk as disciples of Christ becomes more joyful. Our lives take on new meaning. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father becomes more profound. Obedience—(and, he might have added, repentance)—becomes a joy rather than a burden. (Ensign Nov 2009)

How can we teach repentance?

1. REPENT yourself.

We have NO business telling our children ANYTHING about obedience and change unless we’re willing to repent ourselves.

St. Francis of Assisi said, “Preach the gospel at all times and if necessary, use words.”

That takes a second to digest. “Teach by example always, and occasionally use words.”

Pope John XXIII said, "I really must make sure that I never tell others to do what I do not try to practice myself."

Now I offer a pithy statement that you may not have considered before. Listen slowly. You can provide an example of obedience to a gospel principle that the Savior Himself could not and cannot provide. Like what? You can SHOW your children what it’s like to repent. Christ couldn’t do that because He did not sin and therefore had no NEED to repent.

It is your responsibility and opportunity to provide THE primary example of repentance for your children. I’m not going to leave you hanging there with “Be a good example,” which is often as superficial and unhelpful in its meaning as “Repent and keep the commandments.” This brings us to the second way we can teach repentance, which is to TALK about our own.

2. TALK about repentance—yours.

I’m going to give you a real-life example of a parent doing this with a child, with one change: I’m placing YOU in the story as the parent. (Makes it more personal)

You say to your daughter, “Sylvia, earlier today, I was angry at you. Do you remember?”

Sylvia is hesitant as she answers, “Yes.” (Oh, she remembers quite well, but she’s afraid you’re about to trap her in some way. Our children are often far more afraid of us than we realize.)

You continue: “You didn’t clean off the kitchen counter—which was your job—and I didn’t like it that I had to get up from what I was doing and find you to remind you. I was inconvenienced by that, but that is not the problem. The problem is that instead of just being kind and reminding you, or teaching you a lesson, I thought you were being lazy and disrespectful on purpose, to me (the Judgment we’ve talked about in Chapter Four). So then I felt offended, and I defended myself by getting angry at you.”

IF you’ve been having family meetings, and if you’ve already explained the concept of Event → Judgment → Feeling → Reaction, you could identify your Judgment that you thought she was trying to disrespect you, and you could admit being wrong about it. This is a brief parenthetical thought. Back to you talking.

You: So, we’re both going to learn from this.

Kids love it when YOU admit that there is something you need to learn.

You: Was I right about the counter needing to be cleaned off?

Sylvia: YES.

You: Were YOU wrong to leave the dishes out? (light and easy TONE)

Sylvia (beginning to lighten up because of your tone): Yeah.

You: Was I right to remind you that you didn’t do your job?

YES.

You: Were you irresponsible?

Yes (Possible because of your non-accusing tone)

You: And we’ve talked about that before, yes? (calm tone)

Yes.

You: But was I LOVING to you while I taught you about your responsibility?

Sylvia pauses. Kids are often afraid to criticize their parents early in the process of learning about what love really is (until they’re not afraid, and then they can get very good at these conversations.)

If she pauses for more than a couple of seconds, you say, “NO, I was not loving, and that is WAY WORSE than you not doing your job in the kitchen. Way worse. I made a mistake. I was not being loving. I was not showing you how God loves us. So, even though I was right about you not doing your job, was I right about what mattered most?

Sylvia pauses again.

You: NO, I was wrong. And now I see that, and I’ll be more aware of that mistake. I hope I make it less. (You hug Sylvia)

Remember that in Chapter Six, we talked about the reasons for you to tell the truth about yourself.

The first was to find unconditional love from others. That would NOT apply here. You are not looking for unconditional love from your child.

Reasons 2-4:

2. To increase understanding and decrease confusion

3. To defuse conflict—with understanding and your love

4. To increase trust. They have to trust us before they can feel our love.

In one brief conversation, you admitted you were wrong, and you just accomplished THREE reasons for telling the truth.

AND you added a fifth reason to tell the truth about yourself to your child: You just set an example of repentance by talking about it:

You admitted you were wrong. (part of repentance)

You committed to learn. (repentance or change)

(Apologies mean little compared to admitting wrong and committing to learning)

AND

Sylvia admitted that she had been irresponsible, too. That is a step toward HER repentance.

This is teaching Sylvia repentance in a practical way that you’ve likely never done before, and it’s a powerful experience.

Now, a third way to teach repentance:

3. Talk about how it FEELS for you and Sylvia to repent.

TELL HER how good it feels for you to admit that you were unloving and not a good parent when you got angry. Tell her that you knew that you had created a separation between the two of you and that you want to feel close to her. Tell her how you can feel the Spirit more, and how you feel more peaceful and connected to God when you are loving, like He is loving.

Ask her how SHE feels as a result of talking about her mistake, instead of just getting yelled at and defending herself.

Emphasize how beautiful it is simply to tell the truth about a mistake and learn from it, without all the impatience, anger, shame, and embarrassment.

Fourth way to teach repentance:

4. Write it down.

When you repent of a thing, write down the process. Writing will cement it in your mind, and as you write, you’ll learn even more about your repentance from the Spirit. If it’s appropriate for the family, share what you’ve written in the next family meeting. Why should you learn a divine principle and keep it to yourself?

If the example of repentance is the example with Sylvia, get her to help you write it out. She’ll remember that for a long time, and you’ll be giving her such a beautiful example of (1) what repentance looks like, (2) how it’s FUN not to agonize and feel shameful, and (3) something SHE can do in HER life. And (4) she’ll feel closer to you as you share this experience, as well as close to the Spirit (5).

THIS is real repentance. It’s practical, it’s well-defined, it can be duplicated and taught.

Don’t settle just for praying privately, “Lord, help me get less irritated with the kids.” Pfftt. Almost worthless. Don’t just pray FOR repentance. Just REPENT, and share the experience with your children, for whom repentance remains mostly just a word they hear now and again in Sunday School.

The fifth way to teach repentance:

5. Teach your children that we HAVE to make mistakes in order to learn.

We mentioned this a few minutes ago, but I emphasize this because this knowledge and attitude make all the difference in the world to a child.

I talk to adults all over the world every day who were taught a profound lie, a lie I believe was initiated by Satan, a lie we have believed and taught as the truth ever since. Here’s the lie that tends to spoil entire lives:

“When I make mistakes—especially if they qualify as sins—I am bad.”

A shorter version of this lie is, “Mistakes make me BAD.”

We BELIEVE that. Almost everyone believes it, like 99% of us to some extent.

How do I know? EASY:

1. Look at the shame on the face of a child or adult when they make a mistake, even a small mistake. For example, somebody spills food on themselves while eating at a restaurant with friends. Immediately they look embarrassed. They feel stupid and even apologize. Seems small, but the effect is not.

Another example: An adult is walking across a parking lot surrounded by total strangers, but if he trips on something, immediately he does what? He looks around to see if other people are watching. Every time. Why? To see if he’s going to receive the laughter and condescension of the people around him. It’s a cliche, in fact, that we do that.

2. Look at how vigorously we DEFEND our mistakes.

Denial: I didn’t do that

Excuses, like “I didn’t mean to do that.”

Or another excuse: “I couldn’t help it.”

Blaming and attacking others for the mistake.

On and on.

Why would we do all that? Why would we expend all that energy NOT to be wrong?

The ONLY reason that makes sense is that when we make mistakes, we feel less worthwhile, less lovable, less “good.” We feel like we’re bad when we make mistakes.

That well-entrenched belief—that we’re bad when we make mistakes—is WRONG.

Why wrong?

We just covered that: Mistakes are NECESSARY to learning, and we’re HERE to learn.
We CAN’T be bad for mistakes, because we can repent of all of them, and then Christ completely removes them. Washed clean. And we’re not bad UNTIL we repent, either.

Elder Uchtdorf said, “No matter our distress, no matter our sorrow, no matter our mistakes, our infinitely compassionate Heavenly Father desires that we draw near to Him so that He can draw near to us... Heavenly Father's love for His children is the core message of the plan of happines,s which plan is made active through the Atonement of Jesus Christ—the greatest expression of love the world has ever known.... I testify that God is in His heaven. He lives. He knows and loves you. He is mindful of you. He hears your prayers and knows the desires of your heart. He is filled with infinite love for you." (Ensign October 2009) Notice there was no mention of how bad we are until we repent.

In fact, Paul taught the Romans that “Nothing can separate us from the love of God.” (Romans 8:35-39) So where is the sting of shame? Just as Paul said that the sting of death is swallowed up in the Atonement of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54-55), he is also saying that there need be no sting of shame at all.

As you teach your children that making mistakes doesn’t make them bad, you teach them about the love of God, you teach them about repentance, and you teach them to have faith in the Savior whose love and Atonement make all that possible.

Let me share a practical example of learning repentance. A woman asked me for some time on a video call. We set a time for 3:30, and at 3:29 I was there waiting. When she hadn’t arrived by 3:34, I assumed—supported by considerable experience with meeting people at scheduled times—that she had probably forgotten or been otherwise distracted. I texted that I was sorry I had missed her and was about to leave the meeting room. But she called, and her face radiated guilt for her mistake, even shame.

She began to explain why she’d been late, and I recognized an opportunity to love her and teach her a lesson far more important than punctuality. As I share this experience, imagine doing something like this with one of your children. As she struggled to form words, I interrupted and said, “Carol, I don’t care that you were late.”

She was about to continue explaining, but again I interrupted: “Look at me. I really don’t care, so you don’t have to explain it. Take that in, kid. Enjoy it.”

A tear fell from one eye as she said, “Nobody ever cared about me more than they did about whether I made a mistake.”

“I know. So this would be different, wouldn’t it?”

Then she openly wept and said, “Thank you, thank you.” Finally, she regained her composure enough to say, “I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt this loved. I matter to you. I feel a kind of peace I’ve never known before. Everybody is always disappointed in me if I don’t meet their expectations. You’re not disappointed. It’s obvious.”

“Then you get the point, my dear. Nice feeling, isn’t it?”

“Now I’m not sorry that I was late. If I hadn’t made that mistake, I couldn’t have learned with this much confidence how much you care about me.”

“Exactly,” I said. “Some things can be learned only when we make mistakes. Good lesson.”

She beamed.

Carol was normally quite punctual, so our “lesson” was over. She would repent of her tardiness just from feeling loved. With a child who is normally punctual, your lesson would be over after an interaction similar to the one I just described. With a child who is habitually late, you might do a combination of the above lessons along with one about time.

The sixth way to teach our children repentance.

6. NO more excessive guilt.

We talked about this in Chapter Two, where Paul emphasized (2 Corinthians 7:9-11) that we need only enough guilt to repent, to change our judgments. Just enough, no more, or we deny the power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

At this point, it might be worth reading again the section in the last third of Chapter Two, entitled

SECOND Benefit of understanding pain and SIN and Protecting Behaviors:

We can Repent better

Whether you re-read that section or not, an important part of repenting is UNDERSTANDING it better.

Look at what happens with an understanding of the pure love of Christ and the Protecting Behaviors that follow a lack of it. We can flow through a sequence of thoughts like this:

Protecting Behaviors are sins or contribute to sin.
Protecting Behaviors (and therefore sins) are a response to pain, emptiness, and fear.
Emptiness and fear result from a lack of the pure love of Christ in our lives.
Pure love eliminates fear (John said perfect love casts out fear—1 John 4:18), as well as the pain that always precedes fear.
As pain and emptiness and fear are eliminated, we simply lose our need for Protecting Behaviors, as well as our need for sin. In the presence of God’s love, sin is simply not needed. Sin no longer makes sense.
The love of God is the greatest power for eliminating sin.
In the process of repentance, divine love—from one another and from God—is our greatest tool.

In repentance, self-control, and choice are also important (more about this shortly).

With the perspective of sins being Protecting Behaviors, we can have both freedom of mind—no more confusion and unnecessary guilt—and the actual means for repentance. What a gift. Whereas repentance often has been a great drudgery for many of us, we can now see it as a great potential joy.

Let’s punctuate this discussion of repentance with a statement by Elder Eyring: “The truth is that we all need repentance. If we are capable of reason and past the age of eight, we all need the cleansing that comes through applying the full effects of the Atonement of Jesus Christ. When that is clear, we cannot be tricked into delaying our repentance by the subtle question, “Have I crossed the line of serious sin, or can I put off even thinking about repentance?” The question that really matters is this: “How can I learn to sense even the beginning of sin and so repent early?” (Ensign Nov 1999)

Now let’s talk about:

TEACHING REVELATION

Importance of Teaching Revelation

Joseph Smith said, “Salvation cannot come without revelation; it is in vain for anyone to minister without it.” (History of the Church, 3:389).

During President Nelson’s first address as prophet in general conference, he emphasized the necessity of gaining personal revelation: “In coming days, it will not be possible to survive spiritually without the guiding, directing, comforting, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost.”

In various ways he has said since that receiving personal revelation is the most important thing we could be learning and doing.

If he had said playing tennis was the most important thing, we’d all have a tennis racket in our hand. We’d be watching videos about how exactly to hit a forehand stroke, a backhand, an overhead lob, a serve, and so on. These strokes can be taught with great exactness, and if you watch the champions they consistently hit those same shots over and over, with very little variation. They simply move their feet to get into the best position where they can hit the shot they have practiced thousands of times. They have coaches who tell them exactly how to prepare for shots, how exactly to hold the racket, and more.

Lack of Clear Direction

But when it comes to receiving revelation, the instructions we receive are FAR less specific, and—not surprisingly—the results are much slower in coming, often to the point of no progress at all.

As a young man I wanted to hear the voice of God more than I can tell you—I ached for it—and I looked everywhere for the manual of instructions about how to accomplish that. Despite diligent study, prayer, and service, I was left confused and disappointed. We don’t need to leave our children with those feelings.

Let’s look at just a few expressions commonly used in Church lessons and talks to describe revelation, and examine what they teach our children. As I discuss these, I emphasize that I have NO criticism of any of the individual descriptions of revelation or communication with the Spirit. Silly. I DO suggest that we have to amplify these descriptions and illustrate them in ways that our children can actually use them meaningfully.

“Impressed”

It is common in the Church for people to say, “I felt impressed to ... (Say or do whatever).”

Although the word is certainly not wrong, it is also vague and has multiple meanings. How does one go about accomplishing the state of “being impressed?”

The word often implies, for example, a loud or bold statement, as in, “He was impressive from the moment he walked into the room.”

Or, “It was an impressive performance,” which implies boldness and excitement.

Or, “He makes a good impression.” That’s not always a good thing. Satan was called “Son of the morning,” (Isaiah 14:12) which can also be stated as Son of Light or power. He made a great impression, and that’s not what we want to convey by associating the words “revelation” and “impression.”

And if you look to the scriptures for clarification of “impression,” you’ll find 0 references to “impress,” 0 to “impression,” and 1 to “impressed,” which is in the last section of the D&C, which was received in 1918, at which point the English language had changed for a 100 years after the initial events of the restoration.

“Still small voice”

This expression is true, useful, insightful, and inspired. But it’s not enough. It was not intended to be enough. No single expression of a principle could possibly convey the full meaning to every person. Most scriptures require that we understand other scriptures, and that we learn to put them together by faith, practice, and experience.

As a former surgeon, I could instruct you to make an initial incision 2.5 mm posterior to the limbus in preparation for performing a vitrectomy. That would be correct—like “still small voice” is correct—but it’s not enough to enable you to correctly perform a vitrectomy and epi-retinal membrane peel this afternoon. God always tells us what is right and necessary, but very often He doesn’t tell us in one place what is sufficient. There is a big difference between what is good and true vs what is enough for us to truly understand a thing. It is part of God’s perfect plan for us that we must diligently work and search to understand. This builds our faith and focus and perseverance, which are all more important than understanding any one principle.

Another example of recognizing the Spirit: “Your bosom will burn within you”

The Lord used this expression to convey to Oliver Cowdery the feeling of the Spirit, but that really caused me problems as a kid and young man—as it has with many others. In the many years since I have become very familiar with the language of revelation—although it remains miraculous to me every time—and in all that time I have never personally felt a burning sensation in my chest accompanying revelation. Nor has anyone I have known personally.

I suggest that the scriptural and cultural descriptions we have about how to recognize communication from the Holy Ghost were not intended to be an unmistakable algorithm that we could easily follow to success. As I suggested earlier, He guides us here and there, and we learn to put it all together by faith, practice, and experience. And in the process we draw closer to Him whose voice we seek.

And we’re all different—with different spiritual gifts, intellectual gifts, and emotional capacities, wounds, and sensitivities. How COULD there be just one sentence that would be sufficient for and specific to all of us?

So, HOW then do we listen to and understand revelation from the Spirit?

1. Listen.

First, and to use a word often associated with inspiration, we Listen. Oh my, do we not listen well—to anyone, much less the Spirit. Our children speak, for example, but we keep washing vegetables, or reading the latest news feed on our phone, or whatever. We tend not to listen well anywhere.

Let me teach you a very important principle that relates to revelation and listening. In 1965 the term “multi-tasking” first appeared, but it referred to the capabilities of IBM’s latest computer. When it comes to human beings, it is a LIE—popular but still a lie. We CANNOT multi-task. You may think you can. You can do two things in a given minute, but it turns out that in any given moment you cannot pay full attention to two things, which really means that when you think you’re multi-tasking, in truth you are rapidly tasking CONSECUTIVELY—one thing after another. You’re rapidly alternating from paying attention to one thing, then another—usually paying attention poorly to both.

In the moment you turn to your phone, even for a moment, while your child is talking, you ARE missing SOMETHING they’re saying—a word or two, a connotation, a tone, a facial expression, something (or many things)—and (this is what matters) your child DOES NOTICE and does feel ignored and less than important and less loved. And it affects you too.

It’s the same with the Spirit. Either you’re paying attention to Him while He speaks, fully, or you’re not. If you are distracted by something else, you cannot hear Him—just as you cannot hear the faint whirring of a hummingbird’s wings if you’re also wearing a headset playing loud music. God never tires of whispering quietly to us—He does not get impatient—but we simply cannot hear Him over the noise of everything around us in the great and spacious building.

King Benjamin referred to the times we are distracted by the world, and he said “YOU withdraw yourselves from the Spirit of the Lord, so He can’t guide you.” (Mosiah 2:36) I find this so much more instructive, endearing, and edifying than focusing on the verses that describe how the Spirit withdraws from us.

So, the first principle of listening to the Spirit is to listen FULLY, undistracted. Now, distracted by what?

The First big distraction to listening is fear.

Fear

I once did exhaustive word searches looking for the most-repeated commandment in all of scripture. Was it Love? Not even in the top ten. Apparently, as a rac,e we humans are emotionally and spiritually unprepared for that one, which is why God started off with more direct commands like, “Don’t kill each other, will ya?” How about the command to have faith? Lots of references TO faith, but the commandment to have or use it is found about 100 times. The command to pray probably had even more references. But the winner was variations on “Fear not.” I found at least 180 references before I was satisfied that “no fear” was the big one.

Why is having no fear so important? Remember this sequence from Chapter Four?

Event → Judgment → Feeling → Reaction

Once we become afraid—third in the sequence—our reactions just tend to happen, without choice. Fear eliminates rationality, focuses us entirely on ourselves, leads to immediate protecting behaviors (most of which are sins), and tends to severely limit or cancel agency. Fear ain’t good, and while we’re afraid, we are so occupied with ourselves and what might hurt us that we can’t listen to the Spirit. Fear renders us deaf and blind. We can’t listen.

“There is no fear in love.” (1 John 4:18) And “God is love,” (1 John 4:16) so there is no fear in God. There is no fear WITH God. If your heart is occupied with fear, there is no room for God.

Here is a highly practical point for your children: Tell them HOW to prepare for a revelation.

It’s much like training for an athletic event. You wouldn’t eat a heavy meal, then run. You wouldn’t stay up all night playing video games, then play a football game.

Teach your children that before prayer, they must do what it takes to eliminate fear, and in large part, that is YOUR job. That can’t be done by willpower, by saying, for example, “I won’t be afraid.” As John just said, there is no fear in love, and he added ,“Perfect love eliminates fear.” If we put those together, we have a solution. You can talk all day about revelation to your children, but the most important thing you can do to help them hear the Spirit is to LOVE them. When they feel loved by you, they are also feeling God’s love. When they feel that love, it’s like they’ve already won the lottery. They’re invincible. There’s nothing to fear, so they are undistracted in learning to recognize the Spirit.

SO many kids pray in fear—afraid about a problem, afraid they won’t get an answer, afraid they will get an answer but won’t understand it—and then they wonder why they recognize no answer. They might call it “worry” instead of fear, but their heads are still spinning around on their shoulders, so they’re blind and deaf.

God is trying to talk to us, but we stuff our heads and hearts with troubled and racing thoughts and fears, so there’s no room for anything “peaceable.” (Hebrews 12:11; D&C 36:2) Sometimes I wonder if He’s thinking, “Hey, you got a second? You busy?" Revelation is not a product of worry and overthinking. It’s a product of faith, surrender, and acceptance. It’s fun. We’re here to have joy, not to complete projects.

Shortly, I’ll give you an example of how our children can ask for revelation first to eliminate their fear, after which the specific answer to a problem—a different kind of revelation—can be heard.

I taught surgery to a great number of students and residents. If they’re afraid, their hands shake while they operate. Now, take a guess: Does their shaking make them better surgeons? Never. It’s the same with revelation. Fear makes our minds and spirits shake, and that doesn’t improve the reception.

The second distraction is Protecting Behaviors.

We talked about these protecting behaviors extensively in Chapter Two and afterward. When we get afraid (the first distraction from the Spirit), we immediately react by protecting ourselves—lying, anger, running, addictions—and all of these behaviors focus us entirely on OURSELVES. They’re all selfish, and in that condition we can’t listen to anybody or anything but our own pain, fear, and needs—certainly not to the “whisperings” of the Spirit.

God is merciful beyond our ability to comprehend. He understands us. He “took upon Him our pain and flaws, so He could be filled with mercy and know how to support us.” (Alma 7:12) In that merciful light, it’s unthinkable that He would require us to be sinless or perfect in order to listen to the Spirit. He requires only that we be WILLING, that we follow Him enough and pay attention to Him enough to hear Him.

President Ballard said, “One of my children once said, ‘Dad, I wonder if I will ever be able to make it.’ I responded, ‘All Heavenly Father asks of us is to do the very best we can each day.’ Brothers and sisters, do the best you can do day after day, and before you know it, you will come to realize that your Heavenly Father knows you and that He loves you. And when you know that—really know it—your life will have real purpose and meaning and you will be filled with joy and peace.” (Ensign May 2019)

Knock, and it will be opened. We know that verse. But the subtext is that the door will be opened IF you wait at the door and don’t get on your phone or run away in fear. Often, knocking is just stopping to hear the call through an already open door

Why do we have to listen carefully? Because the Spirit doesn’t shout. He whispers. The Lord tenderly invites us to grow in faith. He doesn’t shout at us like dogs off the leash. He doesn’t coerce. He offers.

This works with children, too. If we shout at children, they don’t learn trust, or true humility, or willingness. They learn only guilt, obligation, and duty. Those are not ingredients sufficient for happiness. If you want a child to listen better, speak softer, not more loudly. Not kidding. Try it. Softer and with love.

When you want them to listen, don’t repeat yourself over and over. Don’t raise your voice. Don’t beg them to pay attention. Get their attention—perhaps with a touch or by speaking their name one time. If they don’t respond, stop the activity, distracting them: remove the phone, stop the game or whatever distraction that is occupying them. Whatever they’re doing to interfere with their listening to you is almost guaranteed to be getting in the way of their listening to the Spirit.

When you do finally get their attention in that way, perhaps with their name, they might respond, “I didn’t hear you.”

Yes, almost always, they DID hear you but ignored you. How do I know? I’ve experimented extensively with my own children and with the children of others. IF you said, with the same tone and volume:

“We’re going out for dinner now to XX (their favorite place).” OR

“I’ve decided to increase your allowance.” OR

“We’re thinking about getting you a car.”

SUDDENLY, their hearing would be restored. It’s a miracle.

They hear but do not want to hear.

In their defense, this non-listening is mostly unconscious. They’re distracted, hence the need for you to sometimes just stop the distracting activity.

A practical clue for you: Don’t speak to your children unless they are looking at you. Require that. It’s very difficult for them to claim that they didn’t hear you if they’re looking at you. If they’re playing a game, what you’re saying is more important. Period. They can stop the game. If they continue to distract themselves from listening, you ask, “Would you like to have this conversation now, or would you prefer to talk after you’ve spent an hour in your room waiting for me to come to you and resume the conversation? Choose now, or I’ll choose for you.” Your TONE is very important here.

Listening is critical to loving, hearing the Spirit, and relationships. We MUST teach them how important it is, and how to do it first with us.

Louder

God speaks in a “still voice of perfect mildness, as if it had been a whisper.” (Helaman 5:30) Sometimes He raises His voice for a moment to catch our attention, but usually He just waits for us to focus, for OUR benefit, so we can learn faith, which we just talked about earlier in this chapter.

It’s important that we realize that overall God speaks like a patient father, softly and not aggressively, while Satan speaks as loudly as possible and cares nothing about your “personal space.” If we fail to grasp the softness of God speaking, often we will wait for the blaring trumpets while missing the whisperings of the Spirit we seek.

But occasionally God DOES speak louder, if we are particularly stubborn about listening to the quiet voice.

Nephi was talking to his brothers when he said, “You are quick to do iniquity but slow to remember the Lord your God. You have seen an angel, who spoke to you. You have heard his voice from time to time. He has spoken to you in a still, small voice, but you were past feeling, so you could not feel his words, so he has spoken to you like thunder, which caused the earth to shake as if it would be split apart.” (1 Nephi 17:45) He doesn’t often raise His voice like that.

Now the question: What to listen FOR?

There are many ways to describe the influences of the Spirit. I suggest that we listen for three things, at least as a beginning:

Feelings
Knowledge
Seeing

FEELINGS

Let’s begin with listening for feelings. “Listen” to the Spirit can become a difficult expression, because under most circumstances, we “listen” for sounds, not feelings. So when I say “listen” for feelings, I’m really suggesting that we “perceive” feelings, or—even more simply—we “feel” feelings. Listening is just a conventional word we often use in relation to recognizing the Spirit.

First feeling:

Peace, love

Earlier in this Chapter, we met Ryan and his mother. Ryan came home from school feeling frustrated and alone after being teased at school. Mom helped him see that the kids at school simply didn’t KNOW Ryan, while Mom DID know him and cared about him. That helped Ryan see the value of his mother’s understanding and love, while properly devaluing the opinions of people who did not know or care about him.

Two days after that interaction, again he came home from school looking dejected. Again, Mom sat in front of him and held his hands. She said nothing. Slowly, his sorrow came to the surface.

Mom asked, “Do you remember what I told you a couple of days ago?” (Tone gentle but firm)

Ryan: That you love me.

Mom: Yes. Now, look into my eyes. I do love you. I love you a lot. I know that you want the kids at school to like you, but you’re not in charge of that. You can’t control who they are or how they behave. They have their agency, and you can’t erase all the pain in their lives that got them to this point, where they think bullying you will make them happy. So, what CAN you control? You can control what YOU believe. I love you. You can choose to believe that and remember that. You can control that.”

Ryan was a bit uncomfortable with this level of intimacy—Mom was also new at doing this—so he looked away.

Mom reached out and took his face in both hands, directly facing him toward her—gently. “Look at me, son.”

He did, this time more intently.

“I love you, Ryan. No matter what happens at school, you have my love. You are not alone.”

Tears ran down Ryan’s face.

“Right now,” Mom said, “you’re feeling my love. You’re also feeling the Spirit communicate right into your heart my love for you, along with God’s love. This is a big moment for you. Hang on to it.”

Mom shared with Ryan the pure love of Christ, and she felt the Spirit communicate that to her son. When he felt the love of his mother and the Spirit, his fears dissolved, and then he was able to feel the Spirit even more clearly. We’ll talk more later about how we parents can feel from the Spirit what our children are simultaneously feeling from the Spirit.

On one occasion, the Lord taught Oliver Cowdery that communication from the Spirit could come as a feeling. He referred to a previous occasion when Oliver had asked for guidance, and He said, “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning that matter? What greater witness can you have?” (D&C 6:23). Peace is a gift of the Spirit. It’s one of the languages He uses to communicate with us.

A teenager once called me and said, “Do you remember the other day when I told you that I was worried about that class at school?”

“Yes,” I said.

“And you told me to try an experiment. INSTEAD of worrying, you suggested that I could just present the whole thing to God and ask not for a solution but just to FEEL Him, to feel His love and His companionship. Remember that?”

“I do.”

“Well, I did it. Instead of torturing myself with solutions and what to do, I just asked Him to let me FEEL Him. Almost immediately, I felt like He was there with me. I didn’t get an answer to the class problem, and the cool thing is that I didn’t CARE anymore. I realized that what I wanted most was to feel His love, and He gave me that. I felt peaceful. I didn’t worry. Then later in the day, as I thought about the class problem, I just knew the answer. It just came into my mind. How cool is that?”

So here we have a very practical approach for you to teach revelation to your children. Teach them that at times they think a PROBLEM is the issue, but that can become a distraction. What your child really needs is to feel peace in their heart first. Then, without fear, they can often know by the Spirit the solution to the problem they had struggled with. In one stroke, we have two kinds of revelation, the first making the second possible.

These divine feelings of love and peace are the greatest gifts we can experience in this life. The Apostle Paul said that peace and love are fruits of the spirit (Galatians 5:22‑23), so we can use those conditions as evidence that we are feeling the Spirit, not just hearing our own voice in our head.

But there’s more. The Spirit can actually communicate information to us, as He did with the young lady I just described.

Let’s talk about that second kind of revelation:

KNOWLEDGE

When it comes to understanding the nature of revealed knowledge, I don’t know of any single-sentence description better than the one offered by the Prophet Joseph Smith, who had a rather intimate and practical knowledge of revelation. Our children are itching for that kind of practical knowledge. “How do I actually hear God?” they ask. They ask that question a lot. I did, and I couldn’t find answers. Joseph said that revelation may come as “sudden strokes of ideas” that flow into our minds as “pure intelligence.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith)

The Prophet was not sloppy with language. He said that revelation comes as sudden strokes. The word “strokes” is vivid and clear. It’s meant to be practical, for both us and our children.

Look at the uses of the word “stroke”:

Stroke of the hand, stroke of a pen, sword stroke, stroke of midnight, stroke of lightning, stroke of an oar, stroke of a bird’s wing, stroke of luck, stroke of genius.

From the Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, I synthesized 15 definitions of “stroke,” and the word consistently involves some kind of:

Motion or movement toward something, not just random motion (not wind)
An element of suddenness
A hint of touching or hitting, almost certainly an intrusion of some kind (not violent or injurious, unless otherwise specified)

Let’s look at how this applies to revelation.

When a revelation is not about a feeling (which we described), or about seeing clearly (acquiring a new perspective, which we’re getting to), it’s usually about knowledge, or what Joseph called “pure intelligence.”

Motion, suddenness, and intrusion translate to God briefly intruding, suddenly moving into our thoughts. Now, “intrusion” might sound too strong, but it’s not.

Years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant. My friend, who sat two chairs down from me, suddenly stood and began thrashing around, knocking plates and utensils about, banging against the table and chairs. Something was clearly amiss. And people were moving away from him rapidly. He was both frightened and frightening. He would have died.

But I moved toward him. Suddenly. And I grabbed him from behind and dramatically intruded on his personal space as I began to vigorously squeeze (or stroke) his mid-section from behind—called a Heimlich maneuver.

That stroke dislodged a piece of food from his trachea and saved his life. He could have fought me—people sometimes do—but he knew me and trusted me, and allowed me to continue.

Similarly, often God needs to “intrude” into our personal space—into our minds with new thoughts and ideas—because on our own, how can we come up with something we’ve never conceived of?—just as my friend couldn’t come up with a solution on his own to save his life. When God places these messages in our minds, we can receive them or we can ignore or resist them.

This is a very practical principle we can teach our children (and learn ourselves): God PLACES thoughts or ideas into our minds. We don’t have to grab at them or earn them. We just need to be in a place where these thoughts have a peaceful and fertile place to settle, to be accepted, to be recognized.

President Oaks once spoke about a time shortly after being called as president of BYU, where he had “many problems to analyze and many decisions to reach.” He drove up into the mountains to ponder “a particular problem.” Notice that he doesn’t use the word pray. He went to think it through with the Lord—which is praying. He said, “I found myself unable to think of the [particular] problem” that he wanted the Lord’s counsel about. He said that instead, another issue kept “thrusting itself into his mind.” Thrust is a great synonym for stroke.

Recognize this pattern? These are the “strokes of ideas” spoken of by Joseph Smith. It wasn’t must “issues” that kept “thrusting into his mind.” It was the Spirit gently intruding and offering President Oaks information he needed more than he realized. He said he even resisted this inspiration for “ten or fifteen minutes” but finally realized that he WAS experiencing exactly the “sudden strokes of ideas” that Joseph Smith stated can come from the Spirit. (BYU devotional, 29 September 1981)

In Chapter Four, I described President Nelson once receiving revelation for the wife of one of his grandsons, recognizing in his mind a single word: myopic. Learning to recognize such ideas is a big part of receiving the guidance of the Spirit.

Clues

We are always looking for more sure signs of revelation, and by that I don’t mean an eclipse of the sun or parting of a nearby river. I mean that we naturally want “clues” to help us know whether an idea is a revelation or just a random thought springing from our own mind. Each of the words in the phrase “sudden strokes of ideas” is helpful. Some of this is review, some a synthesis, some a different perspective.

Revelations tend to be sudden, meaning that they appear out of nowhere. They are not the natural conclusion to our thinking about or analyzing a thing, which comes gradually and logically.

Revelations tend to appear firmly. As I am writing, words will come into my mind with a “stroke” that is distinctly firmer than the words, “I’d love some ice cream.”

Revelations tend to be ideas, rather than wishful thinking. As I was describing how we feel in the presence of the Holy Ghost—only moments ago—I sensed the words or idea “fruits of the Spirit,” which prompted my own thinking (which felt different from a revelation) to find that verse (Galatians 5:22‑23). Again “fruits of the Spirit” is an IDEA quite different from an urge: “Love some ice cream.”

The Pattern

Look at the pattern. Our most common expression about recognizing the Spirit is to “Listen to the Spirit.” But this is confusing to children, who immediately—and understandably—connect the word “listen” to a SOUND. Duh. But rarely, rarely does revelation arrive by sound.

In Preach My Gospel, a book primarily intended to teach missionaries HOW to listen to the Spirit, the word used for the heading of that section is “Recognize.” Recognizing the Spirit.

So let’s make sense of “recognizing” the Spirit. And here you’ll see the wisdom of referring to “recognizing” or being “aware” of revelation, rather than “listening,” because we don’t “listen”—strictly speaking—to ideas in our head.

First, strokes of ideas. The idea ENTERS our mind. Can the Spirit do that? Just put an idea in your mind? YES. (Satan can do it too, as proven by an abundance of scriptures.) We’ll be talking more about how to distinguish ideas from the Spirit compared with those from Satan.

Second, if we are undistracted and prepared, we are AWARE of these ideas. Sometimes we’re aware but don’t quite pay enough attention to move to the next step (the Third concept, which follows below).

Third, We accept the idea and KNOW it—and the Spirit helps additionally with the knowing. This step, of course, requires faith. Initially, for many of us, that faith might simply be in some power greater than ourselves, or in virtue, or in the indefinite term “God.” That’s all right. God takes us right where we are and goes from there. He does not insist that our notions of his characteristics be utterly correct before He speaks to us. Eventually, our faith culminates in a focus on the Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement.

That entire process can stop during the initial idea phase if we are distracted, or if we actively resist. It works the same with Satan. With either influence, the idea just HAPPENS. It intrudes, but then we choose to give it a place, or to ignore it, or to fight and throw it out. We can do all that with either the Holy Ghost or Satan. They are both spirits who can initiate the first thoughts.

In many instances, we’re not aware of all three steps. Sometimes we just know a thing. On other occasions we ignore the thought placed there by the Spirit, and as far as we are concerned, it never happened. In the process of my writing tens of thousands of pages about the gospel and about revelation, this process has become clear in my mind—surprisingly so. I have also learned through extensive experience how to feed the ideas from the Spirit, and we’ll get to that shortly.

I want you to know that such “intrusions” by the Spirit need NOT be rare. I have had experiences almost exactly like that described by President Oaks on hundreds of occasions—in the preparation for this Training alone. Be clear that God WANTS to speak to you and your children. There is no limit to revelation. You will not use up your allowance of "strokes of ideas." We can develop and use our ability to receive these ideas all our lives.

When I was younger, I could not imagine such frequent communication from the Spirit. And then I went through a period where I was PROUD of being connected to the Spirit on such occasions. That’s pretty embarrassing. And now, after writing 30 books, speaking at hundreds of seminars, and recording thousands of videos—intently listening to the Spirit thousands of times—I still find myself somewhat afraid every time that I can’t do it again. I think, surely I am not worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost, who would communicate to me—a very flawed human being—the mind and will of the Father and Son.

And yet that is exactly what Christ prayed to the father that we all might accomplish, that we might be “one (united) with the Father and the Son.” (John 17: 21) He didn’t ask that we occasionally touch fingers with them, or wave as they go by, but that we be ONE with them. And how can we be one with the Father and Son unless we are communicating daily with the Spirit, who makes that unity possible?

Over and over in the writing of this Training alone, I suddenly understood a principle I’d read 100 times before, simply with a stroke of “pure intelligence,” an understanding not found in a book or talk anywhere.

At this point, I emphasize that it is unthinkable to boast of such revelations. As Paul said to the Corinthians, “Love is never proud or selfish.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8) And if the pure love of Christ never involves pride, neither can listening to the Spirit.

BUT we must not let our fear of boasting cause us to be afraid of talking about our communications with the Spirit. As we fail to talk about it, we fail to teach our children how to LIVE spiritually. We leave them to be taught by the world. Oh, sure, a Sunday School or seminary teacher here and there will teach them, but that’s not NEARLY enough. As we fail to talk about the realities of revelation, WE also become less sensitive to recognizing inspiration. Why? Because as we TEACH revelation and share revelation, we learn more about it. We confirm what we’ve learned.

We must stop hiding the process of revelation. YES, it is sacred, but that doesn’t mean secret. Many talks have been given about personal revelation being sacred, and cautions have been given—we’ll talk more about those later in this chapter—but those talks never say NOT to talk about personal revelation, only to remember that they’re sacred. What are the SCRIPTURES themselves but the recorded revelations of men who had the courage to teach them to their children and their friends?

My Process of Revelation

I can’t tell YOU how to receive personal revelation. I can tell you only MY experience with it.

This IS highly personal, not a subject I’ve spoken about to many. Maybe what I’ve said so far—and will be saying—will be judged as too vulnerable in the eyes of some. But our children need to hear such practical experiences. I am suggesting that you teach your children about the revelations you receive—and have received—in just such a matter-of-fact way as I am doing with you now.

I’m sharing HOW I have learned about revelation with you so you can at least hear an example, so you can formulate in words how YOU receive personal revelation, and come up with a way to explain it to your children. They deserve that, and we need to get much better at it.

I mentioned hundreds of revelations I’ve received just in the process of preparing for this Training. Some background might help you. All my life, memorization has been a problem—a specific kind of memorization. Although I have a prodigious memory for individual facts, memorizing words in sequence is a different part of the brain and a completely different brain function. I could never easily memorize, for example, entire scriptural passages, no matter how short. I did finally nail the verse, “Jesus wept.” My brain doesn’t work well for sequential memorization. I still can’t sing an entire hymn. My mind produces “I am a child of God,” and then I’m pretty sure something good happens after that.

But when I’m writing with the Spirit, “strokes of ideas” come into my mind, sometimes one at a time, at other times so rapidly in sequence that I can barely type them fast enough. How? A voice? No. Like taking dictation? No. The ideas come in 2-3 word phrases, as Elder Oaks and many others have described. The ideas just APPEAR in my mind. They’re just THERE as thoughts. I don’t “hear them” or listen to them. I simply stay OPEN to them and as they appear, I recognize the source of them and KNOW THEM. And then I write them, or they’re gone.

Sometimes I then need to use the Internet and other search engines to find those passages that the 2-3 words came from. Or I can complete the gospel concept on my own, or perhaps with another 2-3 word phrase from the Spirit. Or, sometimes, I simply type as fast as I can, with one short phrase after another filling my mind until the message is complete—as has happened many times during this Training—or until I’m exhausted. Then, LATER I weave together all those short phrases into sentences, applying grammar and organizing it all into sections and chapters. That part is usually mine to figure out.

Just now I just described a very, very practical and real-life example of revelation, as well as the how-to and principles behind it. It’s practical, exactly what our children need.

Sometimes you’ll pray, and as God told Oliver Cowdery, you’ll just feel that it’s right. It WILL be a feeling, rather than words. If you had to express that feeling in words, it would be kind of like, “Yep, you’ve got it.” In this case, one revelation could be both information and a feeling, two of the kinds of revelation we’ve mentioned. Earlier in this chapter I mentioned a teenager who did exactly this, first receiving a revelation of peace, after which she was able to solve a problem she had in a class at school—with a revelation of information.

You might receive knowledge in revelation in other ways. Some people experience mental images, which is different from visions. (We’ll give a couple of examples in this chapter.) Most people I have spoken with experience words in their mind. Our children need to hear as many of these ways as possible. They need practical instructions.

I tremble every time I need revelation, genuinely afraid that somehow my name has been struck off the list of those who are eligible—afraid that finally I’ve been “found out.” As I even thought of this subject of revelation—in this Chapter of the Training—and contemplated my claim to receive it on occasion, the words “such as I” came into my mind, exactly in a stroke. At first, I was puzzled by those three words. Then I remembered vaguely that it was in a hymn. Then I Googled “LDS, such as I,” and bang! There were the words to express exactly what I was thinking and feeling.

“I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,

Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.

I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine

To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine,

That he should extend his great love unto such as I,

Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.”

(I Stand All Amazed, LDS Hymnbook)

Sometimes when the Spirit speaks to me, I almost look behind me to see who the Spirit must be talking to. I want to say out loud, incredulously, “You talkin’ to me?” Hearing the Spirit is profoundly humbling, and connecting, and fulfilling, and fun.

Later in this chapter, we’ll be talking much more about how you can teach your children about your own revelations.

Caution in Sharing

Many leaders express concern about our sharing our revelations.

President Packer counseled, “Spiritual experiences ... are generally for our own edification, instruction, or correction. Unless we are called by proper authority to do so, they do not position us to counsel or to correct others. It is not wise to continually talk of unusual spiritual experiences. They are to be guarded with care and shared only when the Spirit itself prompts you to use them to the blessing of others” (Ensign Jan 1983)

So what is the caution about? What is the danger of talking about personal revelation?

1. Boasting and comparison. People sometimes speak of what President Packer called “unusual spiritual experiences” for the purpose of aggrandizing THEMSELVES, or to be different, or to LOOK spiritual. It is very understandable that in the absence of real love, the love of God, we would get attention, praise, and other ways of feeling good about ourselves. I’ve seen it. I’ve been there when people have spoken in testimony meeting about the writing that appeared on their bedroom wall, sometimes with letters in fire, or their conversation with Alma the night before. That kind of sharing can be quite confusing to others, who wonder if they’re NOT spiritual because they’re not getting that kind of experience. But you can tell—by the Spirit—when such tales are true or are fabricated or embellished. You can learn to feel the intention behind the account. And sometimes we learn humility only after the embarrassment of our own boasting.

Second caution:

2. Speaking of revelations can be used to influence or control others, again spoken by President Packer. People do this commonly. They have a strong attachment to a decision, so when they’re talking to those with a different opinion, they seek to end the discussion by saying, “I just FEEL that this is what we (or you) should do.”

We’ve all heard some variation on the single guy who tells the object of his affection that he has received a revelation that she should be his wife. Nope, he has no right to do that. Or the person who has a revelation for the ward, when that’s the bishop’s responsibility. Again, the Spirit will tell you whether the revelation applies to you.

Does that mean you can’t receive revelation about others? No. Or FOR others? No. I have received revelation for others on many occasions while counseling them. Addicts, for example, are insane with pain, whether they’re addicted to substances or behaviors. They get to the point where they are deaf and blind to anything but the pain relief they get from using it. They CAN’T receive revelation, and sometimes they need gentle suggestions or even firm directions.

So what is the real caution here? Controlling others which must always be avoided because it violates agency. Even when I do speak by the Spirit about someone else, I offer it as guidance and not to replace their own decision.

Another guide in receiving revelation for others: If the intended action benefits YOU in some way, you might seriously consider whether you’re hearing the Spirit or just your own desires shouting in your ear.

Third caution about sharing personal revelation:

3. Sharing might profane that which is sacred. How do you know if you’re inappropriately sharing what was never meant to be shared? Use your agency and pay attention to the same Spirit who gave you the revelation in the first place. Does the Spirit direct you to share a particular inspiration with one other person? Then listen to that. Maybe two people? Or share it in a family meeting? Put it in a Training? Listen to that. I normally speak of my own personal revelations only to my sweetheart, Donna, but as I was writing this Training I realized it was important to share enough that people could get better direction by example on this subject. That was a stretch for me to do, but I had no doubt about it, so here I am talking about the subject.

I have a great deal of experience with revelation. That makes me better than no one. I have simply practiced for a long time what I have said so far in this Training, as well as practicing for what I will yet say in the rest of this chapter and more to follow. Sometimes I keep revelations to myself—forever. Most inspirations I share with my eternal partner. Some I share with the person a revelation is about. Sometimes I share with a tiny handful of people. And some I share with the world, as I’m doing here in this Training. We’re here as brothers and sisters to share this eternal journey with each other, and to hold each other’s hands where possible and where inspired to do that.

The Spirit will tell you who you can share your revelations with. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong. Well, surprise (not). It’s from such mistakes that we learn.

The bottom line is that if we’re preparing for the coming of Christ in our individual lives, we need more practice with revelation, more instruction about it, and more sharing it with others. We must not give in to fear about this subject. We can’t hear from the prophets that revelation is critically important and then be reluctant to talk about our experiences with it. President Nelson recently talked about his personal revelation to repeatedly visit his dying friend, Elder Robert D. Hales, on one occasion arriving 10 minutes before his death. (Liahona Jan 2021)

He added, “Our need for divine guidance has never been greater, and our efforts to hear the voice of Jesus Christ have never been more urgent ... the Lord is ready to reveal His mind to us. That is one of His greatest blessings to us.”

God wants to talk to us, His children, all day long. Why should we not take advantage of His inclination and teach our children how to do the same—which would include sharing our own experiences with this subject?

Silence

Occasionally, God’s answer to our questions is silence. Why?

We may not NEED the answer to the question we’re asking. God does NOT answer curiosity questions. He’s not a divine version of Google.

We may not be ready for the answer. We may require more experience and other revelations before we can understand the answer to the question we’re asking.

We may be asking the wrong question, as President Oaks did initially, even resisting the silence in response to his first questions.

Our children need to understand that the answers to prayers are God’s to give, not ours to insist on. We must LISTEN and be genuinely willing to say, “Thy will, not mine, be done.” (Matthew 6:10; 26:42)

I’ve lived in the same place now for 40 years, but before I moved there, I was looking all around the country for a place to set up a surgical practice. I visited a number of towns, and I knew that by myself I couldn’t begin to know the “right place.” So many factors are always unknown, now and especially in the future. I couldn’t possibly make a decision from a spreadsheet, so I asked God to tell me when I visited the place where we should live.

In one place, the small city and the hospital pulled out all the stops to entice me to come. They offered to provide a building for my office, a fully-equipped operating room for my specialty, a laser, all the patients I could handle, a guaranteed income for the first two years, and more. I had never seen a better offer, and as I was driving away from the town to visit the next one, I asked God to tell me if I should move my family to . . . my mind was blank. For minutes, I searched in vain for the name of the town where I had just spent all day, where I’d visited their hospital, where I had met their mayor, and more. I had seen and heard the name of that town over and over, but I could NOT remember the name of the town whose city limits I had not even cleared when I prayed about it. Nothing.

And then I remembered—another revelation—the Lord’s words to Oliver Cowdery: “You must study it out in your mind and ask me if it is right, and if it is right I will cause that ... you will feel that it is right. But if it is not right you will ... have a stupor of thought that will cause you to forget the thing that is wrong.” (D&C 9:8–9) In that moment I knew I was experiencing a Spirit-induced brain fog, or “stupor of thought.” THAT was my answer, just as clearly as hearing, “Nope, that’s not the place.” (Parenthetically, this is further proof that the Spirit can enter our minds but will not control them.)

Sometimes silence means NO revelation, or NO MORE revelation.

I have experienced this many times when writing. Although I have said that on occasion I can’t type fast enough to keep up with the strokes of ideas, sometimes they’re just not there at all. Nothing. On my own, I try to write a couple of brilliant sentences, and I am reminded that I’m not nearly good enough as a man to write about many things. So, when the flow of ideas is gone, I stop. Period. I don’t write on my own anymore. It’s too much work for mediocre results.

We’ve mentioned that two forms of revelation are feelings and knowledge. I said there were at least three, the third being revelation for

SEEING

Seeing clearly. This is about receiving a divine perspective.

We don’t really “listen” with our ears to seeing, so again the phrase “listening to the Spirit” has drawbacks. It would be more appropriate to talk about perceiving, recognizing, or being aware of this kind of revelation, which we’ve mentioned before.

In Chapter Four, we called this “seeing” a change in perspective, or an ability to see through God’s eyes, and I illustrated it with a couple of examples of real people whose perspective was changed in a moment or two, so they could see another person as they really were. President Eyring provided one such example.

This change in perspective—another word for judgment—changes everything.

You remember this: Event ® Judgment ® Feeling ® Reaction

Once a judgment has formed solidly—especially if we were TAUGHT that judgment at an early age—rarely do we change it. This is true about a LOT of judgments, many of which I listed in Chapter Four.

But the Spirit can help us change old judgments. I just mentioned examples from that chapter where the Spirit helped someone change their judgment.

Earlier in this chapter, we talked about a mother who loved her son, Ryan, who had been teased at school. She told me that when she first saw that he was upset, her initial thought was, “I have so much to do before dinner. I can’t deal with this crisis right now.” But despite some reluctance on her part, she was still LISTENING. She had not closed her mind, so the words “He needs your love” came into her mind. That was the entire message—a stroke of ideas—and that’s what began her touching conversation with Ryan, which I described earlier.

Before she began her conversation, she had listened to the Spirit change her judgment of the situation, from Ryan being an inconvenience—the initial judgment—to his being her child, God’s divine child who needed her love. That immediately changed her feelings and her subsequent decision and conversation with him. That was the pure love of Christ she felt, which she then passed on to Ryan. This is an example of revelation coming as a feeling and knowledge.

HOW to Listen

Be Quiet

The Lord has said, “Be still, and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10; D&C 101:16)

In order to fully listen, we have to shut up first.

We need quiet time every day to create an atmosphere where listening is more likely. That does NOT mean to make a quiet time SO THAT God WILL immediately answer a particular prayer. In my experience, rarely does God speak to us right when we WANT it. Rather, He tends to speak when we NEED it. More about that shortly.

We have to eliminate as many distractions as possible in these quiet times. No phone, no noise (if possible). Can God speak to us while there is noise? SURE, sometimes exactly when we need it, but we still need to create quiet times that are more conducive to listening.

I have found that BUSYNESS can become a huge distraction from listening. If I’m overly focused on ACCOMPLISHING a thing, I don’t hear the whispering I need very well. And no, I’m not recommending that we stop doing things, just that we not crowd too much into a day, to the point that a focus on listening becomes impossible.

I once took a group of 30 Varsity Scouts—Boy Scouts ages 14 and 15—on a high adventure from San Antonio, Texas to northern Idaho and back. We all traveled together on a big school bus, about 4000 miles, punctuated by lots of camping, hiking, caving, canoeing, and making repairs to the old bus. I doubt that such a thing could even be done today with limitations on expenses and such, but it was quite an experience.

At one camping site, we arrived in the late afternoon and began to unpack and set up tents. Evening was approaching, and a whirlwind of activity was needed to get things ready before the sun went down on 30 boys. We were well into our setup when I took a boy with me and walked up a hill, where we looked down on the busy young men. Somehow I just felt like taking a moment—a quiet time—to absorb what was happening and possibly learn what was needed. In a moment of quiet observation—I was not praying for the answer to a specific question or problem—I suddenly just KNEW, without any words, that we were occupying the wrong campsite.

Naturally, I did not WANT that to be the case, because it would mean taking everything down, packing it up, and moving, where much of the camp would have to be set up in the dark. But the boys willingly followed my direction, with all of us a bit puzzled about why we were moving.

Sometime in the middle of the night, we heard a loud noise, got out of our tents, and discovered that after we had moved, another group of Scouts had set up camp above our old site. In the night, the brakes of their bus had failed, allowing the bus to fall rapidly down the hill and crash directly through the middle of our first site. I felt grateful to have listened as I considered how many of us WOULD have died or been injured in that accident. It was a quiet prompting, and I had forgotten about it entirely until nearly 40 years later, when I was reminded of it by the boy who had gone up the hill with me to look at the camp.

I’ve already mentioned being distracted by fear and protecting ourselves, so I won’t repeat that discussion here.

I have also discovered that being exhausted is a distraction. It’s difficult for a sleepy, tired mind to comprehend the language of God, who is the very embodiment of the energy that fills the universe. He’s animated, alive, and we have to match that to at least some mortal degree before we can hear him.

Another way to facilitate listening to inspiration:

Choose faith. I talked about this in the section on teaching faith in this chapter. If we choose doubt, if we insist on explanations, if we require proof, if we insist on figuring everything out so that it turns out OUR way, we will not hear the Spirit speak to us. If I had chosen to question the Spirit, many of my Varsity Scouts would have been killed or wounded. If Lehi had insisted on having his questions answered—“You want me to go WHERE? Without a map? Without a plan? Without food?”—we wouldn’t have the stories of his people as they learned to listen to God (as well as what happened on the occasions when they didn’t listen).

Another aid to listening to revelation:

Write them down

Everywhere I go—all around the house, in the shower, working outside—I carry some form of writing instrument, and I’m old, so no, it’s not my phone. If I wake in the night with an inspired thought, I reach over to my bed stand to get the paper and pen there, and I write in the dark, essentially blind. It’s often hard to read my writing the next morning—sometimes it runs off the paper—but it’s there. I write it immediately because rarely do I get a second chance. The Spirit is constantly training us to pay attention right now, not when it’s convenient for us. There have been occasions when I didn’t write the words immediately, or I wrote them incompletely, and then later I search for them in vain, no matter how I try. On occasion, I can almost hear the Holy Ghost saying to me, “Guess maybe you should pay better attention, eh?” Yeah.

What do I get out of writing down inspired thoughts? The multiplicative effect of writing is impressive.

I get to hear the voice—more accurately, the words or thoughts—of God the Father and Jesus Christ as they give them to me by the Spirit. That’s thrilling to me every time.
When I write it, I experience the words again, just as they were placed in my mind.
I make those words MINE. They were placed in my mind by the Spirit, but when I write them, now I OWN them.
As I write them, OFTEN I receive additional words. Sometimes it turns out that the first few words were the preface to a series of a hundred or more similar phrases, which later I organize into more complete and hopefully coherent expressions.
I pay attention better. I couldn’t possibly count how many “strokes of ideas” I have ignored in my lifetime—embarrassing—and by establishing a pattern of writing them down, my mind becomes naturally better prepared to pay attention to the next occasion of revelation.
I can read them again later, again experiencing the thrill of being “one” with the Father and Son, just as Christ prayed to the Father for us to be. (John 17: 21)
Occasionally, when so instructed, I can share the words with others who might benefit.
I get to use them here with you.

That’s a LOT of benefit from simply writing down what I receive. You will have a list of benefits similar to this, as will your children when you teach them this particular tool in recognizing the Spirit.

Take Action, Now

This is the next aid to receiving revelation better.

I mentioned three forms of revelation: feelings, knowledge, and seeing. Let me add a fourth at this point: Direction, or commands. Sometimes I am simply told what to do, and through painful experiences I have learned that I get such promptings right when I need them, which means that I need to act on them right then.

Years ago I worked a 36-hour shift at a hospital, which was not unusual at that point in my career. When I got home I was bone tired. I wanted to spend some time with the kids, get something to eat, listen to my partner talk about her day, and go to bed early. As I got out of the car in our driveway, I recognized the words, “See Lucien.” Lucien was a man in our ward, once in the bishopric, who had not attended church in several months. I was not his home teacher, but the message was undeniably intended for me.

I responded, silently, “That’s a really good idea. I’ll do that,” and I mentally scanned my calendar for a time to accomplish that task in the next few days. As I took my first few steps toward the house, I “heard” one more word: “Now.” I’ve learned that most of the time when I’m given a directive, I need to act right then, but at that point I had not learned that lesson—and I was exhausted—so the Spirit had to direct me more clearly. God is very patient with us slow people.

I turned around, got in the car, and drove as far from my house as you could travel and still be in that city. I parked, walked to his front door, and drew back my hand to give the door an audible

blow. I moved my hand forward, but the door opened at exactly the right time to cause my hand to strike only air.

Lucien was standing there, with quite a look of surprise on his face. He said, “How did you know?”

I said, “Know what?” and then he explained that he had gotten to the end of his rope. He’d been severely depressed, had been drinking almost constantly, and was about to walk out the door to get in his car and drive off the tallest bridge in town, which was by the ocean.

If I had waited for 60 seconds more, he would have been dead.

Act now. As you do, you’ll train yourself to pay attention better to the inspiration you do get.

Revelations can direct you to save a life, or to guide you in matters that appear trivial. One of my sons had been growing in his ability to receive personal revelation, as directed by the Prophet, and one day he said that he had been on his way to a Church youth activity. On his way out the door, he “heard” the word “keys.” He knew he had his car keys, and he knew the building would be open, with people who brought their keys, so he dismissed the word as an oddity.

When he got to the activity, he discovered that more than one leader had not come, and that the activity required access to several rooms and closets which he couldn’t open because he had not brought his . . . you guessed it, keys.

He said to me without a trace of guilt, “I guess I’ll pay attention better next time, eh?”

Yes, I guess he will. By speaking the lesson learned without guilt, he demonstrated an understanding of revelation that few people ever acquire.

Revelation is God’s School

Revelation is an opportunity to be schooled by the Lord. With each feeling, word, picture, perspective, and directive, we learn the “mind and will [of Him] “who rules over all.” (D&C 133:61)

We tend to spend our lives worried that we won’t “get it RIGHT.” We just talked about this subject earlier in this chapter. We learn from making MISTAKES. They are NECESSARY in the process. Learning theory, in fact, has proven that we tend to learn more from mistakes than from successes. So why do we worry so much about getting everything RIGHT? This might sound jarring, perhaps even blasphemous, but the Lord doesn’t care so much that we make mistakes. He cares about our learning the process of correcting them, which means to repent, and that involves listening to the Spirit, where we will make even more mistakes, from which we will also learn.

It’s far more important that we fully participate in the learning than it is that we get each step right. Very often, in fact, our avoidance of mistakes becomes an unwillingness to take risks and take action, which guarantees that we’ll learn less.

Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, who—toward the end of his life spoke some of the tenderest words I’ve ever heard spoken by the Spirit—said, “The Lord knows we will make mistakes. That is why He suffered for our sins. He wants us to get back on our feet and strive to do better.” (Ensign May 2008)

President Uchtdorf said, “Sometimes the thing that holds us back is fear. We might be afraid that we won’t succeed ... that we might be embarrassed ... And so we wait. Or give up ... We almost certainly will fail—at least in the short term. But rather than be discouraged, we can be empowered because this understanding removes the pressure of being perfect right now. It ... takes away much of the surprise and discouragement of failure ... even if we fail to reach our ultimate, desired destination right away, we will have made progress along the road that will lead to it.” (Ensign Jan 2014)

On another occasion he said, “The heavens will not be filled with those who never made mistakes.” (Ensign May 2008)

Sometimes the learning isn’t about making mistakes. Sometimes it’s just about taking one step after another, discovering that the path from A to B is not a straight line. It involves taking steps—learning things—we could not have anticipated. The straight line from Earth to Mars, for example, when they are closest in the solar system, is 34 million miles. The actual journey from Earth to Mars, however, because both planets are moving, can be no shorter than 185 million miles (5 ½ times the length of the straight line).

So what do we learn here? Listen. Act on what you hear. Make mistakes. Practice. Be confused about what the Spirit says. You’ll learn from that too, maybe not today but eventually. Keep going, and your sensitivity and understanding will mature as you become more attuned to how the Spirit instructs and comforts you.

Next help in recognizing the Spirit: Patience

As I listen to people describe their prayers and their desires to receive answers, it’s not at all difficult to pick up on this pattern: We have a tendency to pray and ask questions, then fold our arms and go, “Well?” as we wait impatiently for the answers to come in the timing we prefer.

But rarely do the answers to our prayers come immediately after asking a question. On many occasions, members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve have said that they often don’t receive revelation immediately upon asking. Some subjects require years to fully understand.

Elder Oaks said, “We should recognize that the Lord will speak to us through the Spirit in His own time and in His own way. Many people do not understand this principle. They believe that when they are ready and when it suits their convenience, they can call upon the Lord and He will immediately respond, even in the precise way they have prescribed. Revelation does not come that way.” (Ensign Aug 2013)

You cannot force the Spirit to speak to you. You can’t even hurry the Spirit. But unconsciously we reveal that we ARE in a hurry and do have expectations of the Spirit, which often is a form of rushing the Spirit’s timetable.

We use expressions like this:

“I’ve prayed and prayed about this,” often said with a tone of some impatience that the Spirit has failed to meet our timetable.

“I prayed very hard about this.” It’s unintentional, but we indicate that we believe that if we pray harder, the Spirit will feel obligated to listen better and answer us.

“We fasted and prayed that (fill in the blank: illness be healed, problem be solved).”

Is praying bad? No.

Is fasting bad? No.

But we commonly say that we “fasted and prayed” in a way, or with a tone, that implies that the Spirit will then feel more inclined to answer us. It may seem subtle, but it’s not. We’re pushing the Holy Ghost to answer us, and in a particular way.

Elder Richard G. Scott said, “Some truths regarding prayer may help you. The Lord will hear your prayers in time of need. He will invariably answer them. However, His answers will generally not come while you are on your knees praying, even when you may plead for an immediate response. ... At times the Lord will want you to proceed with trust before you receive a confirming answer. His answer generally comes as packets of help. As each piece is followed in faith, it will unite with others to give you the whole answer. This pattern requires the exercise of faith. While sometimes very hard, it results in significant personal growth.” (Ensign Nov 2001)

Elder Scott says answers will come in time of need. That is my experience as well. I almost always receive answers to prayers when I NEED them most, and that is the experience of most people I have talked to. It’s one powerful reason for us to serve others and share the gospel with others. While we’re serving and teaching, we have a great need for guidance from the Spirit, and that’s a very likely time for Him to speak to us.

Another important factor that leads to greater communication with the spirit is preparation. We wouldn’t reasonably go to a conversation with a professor at school without preparing. Similarly we cannot arrive totally unprepared to a conversation with the Spirit, who knows all truth. That brings us to the subject of what I call

Incremental Revelation

which means that our ability to receive revelation grows steadily as we nourish it. We’ll talk more about this shortly, but first some preparation for understanding this subject.

We Want Instant Revelation

All my life I have witnessed a pattern among the people of the Church that has caused enormous disappointment, disillusionment, and discouragement. I have done it myself on many occasions.

This is the pattern: We have a question or problem. We pray for the answer, often (1) flattering Him, extolling his power with grand words, for example; (2) reciting evidence of how deserving we are of an answer; and (3) letting Him know that we REALLY need this answer. After saying “Amen” we pause for a moment, perhaps open one eye, and we wait for the heavens to open and give us a complete, clear, preferably dramatic, and perfectly unambiguous answer. If that doesn’t happen in a minute or two, we turn our eyes heavenward and say—usually silently—some version of “Well, I did what you said, and you said you would always answer, so let’s get on with this.” We say or think this much as we would to someone who didn’t answer our text to them in a timely manner.

Two things here about timing:

As we already stated, we can’t force the Spirit, and our time is not His time. We’ll be talking more about that.
We make this mistake a lot: We pray for THE answer to a question or problem. But often WE are NOT ready for THE answer. For now we might have to be satisfied with AN answer, perhaps a step toward THE answer. Stop expecting and waiting for THE answer to your prayers. Relax. You’re in God’s school, remember? Have faith in Him that you’ll receive an answer you need and can understand, which will lead you to the next answer, and so on. More about that later too. He is itching to talk to you, AND He has said, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways. As the heavens are higher than the earth, just so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9) In most cases, for a variety of reasons, we are not READY for God’s final answer on a matter. We understand basic addition and subtraction only, but we want an answer that is expressible only in calculus. There are intermediate steps we must take, perhaps not all of them in this mortal life.

In receiving revelation,

We must do our own work

Elder Scott said, “When we explain (to God) a problem and a proposed solution, sometimes He answers yes, sometimes no. Often He withholds an answer, not for lack of concern, but because He loves us—perfectly. He wants us to apply truths He has given us. For us to grow, we need to trust our ability to make correct decisions. We need to do what we feel is right. In time, He will answer. He will not fail us. (Ensign Nov 1989)

Beautiful, even stunning. Notice that sometimes God withholds an answer because He loves us enough to insist that we do whatever it takes to GROW. How badly our children need to know this, because they have in their minds a conditioned response, learned at school and at home: A question is followed by the ANSWER. Immediately. We teach them this pattern at home when we say, “What did I just ask you, young man?” The kid better have an answer, yes? Question followed by immediate answer, and they unconsciously reason that they can expect God to work that way. Ah, but God doesn’t take orders. He doesn’t work at McDonald’s.

We NEED to teach our children that God is not our servant. We are HIS students in His school. The rules are His. Sometimes we need simply to move forward on our own until the time for the Spirit’s answer arrives. Sometimes He leaves us to do the work and come up with our own answers. And sometimes the inspired answer is incomplete, leading to more work and exercise of agency on our part, followed by yet another inspired answer.

Why this pattern? Why so complicated? It’s not really complicated when we understand that we grow by faith. We grow in confidence as we trust our own judgment and agency. We grow to become like God—we acquire His ways and His thoughts—as WE make choices and as we move from one inspiration to the next. And in the whole process we prepare better for the Spirit to help us. But our efforts must come first.

Many years ago I was preparing to play the prelude music for stake conference. I would then continue on the organ for the congregational hymns and special musical numbers. During a conversation I had in the choir seats with the stake president, he said—for reasons I do not remember—that if we are given a calling, the Lord will always inspire us to accomplish that calling.

I asked, “So are you saying that He will make up for whatever lack of talent or preparation on our part so we can accomplish that calling?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Really? So let’s assume that right before conference you are released and called to be the stake organist, which is one of my many callings. Are you saying that you would be inspired to play the organ in a way that would uplift the congregation and add to the spirit of the meeting?”

He couldn’t answer the question. Most of us can’t. We fail to recognize the role of our own preparation for solving problems, answering questions, and growing.

President Oaks once described a talk he gave in Bulgaria, where afterward his interpreter tearfully described to him how he had spoken words or thoughts in English that she (the interpreter) did not understand. “She said that whenever this happened, ‘another voice’ spoke through her so she found herself using words or explaining concepts in Bulgarian that she did not understand in English.” (Ensign June 2001) He presented this as an example of a miracle.

And this revelation occurred to whom? Did Elder Oaks summon ME from the audience to interpret English concepts into Bulgarian? NO. ADDITIONAL revelation was given to someone who had already practiced extensively in this subject and likely had received prior revelations about it.

In April 1829, Oliver Cowdery was promised that he could have the gift to translate, as Joseph Smith had done to that point. But Oliver’s subsequent efforts were mostly unsuccessful, and the Lord spoke to him about his disappointment: “You have not understood; you have supposed that I would give this gift to you, when you took no thought except to ask me. But I say that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it is right, and if it is right I will cause that ... you will feel that it is right.” Oliver was promised revelation only after he’d done his own work.

God’s plan is to HELP us grow WHILE we use our own agency and wisdom and effort, NOT to simply hand us revelation and growth. Why? Because being handed revelation would shortcut the learning process, lessen our need for faith, and diminish US. Being handed complete answers would change our role completely from being students in God’s school as His children to that of being little more than shelves upon which God places his files.

Nephi understood this when he broke his steel bow, which they had relied upon heavily for hunting game in the wilderness. He said, “I made a bow out of wood, and an arrow from a straight stick. Then, armed with a bow and an arrow, and a sling and stones, I asked my father where I should go to find food.” Notice that Nephi didn’t even ask for help from God until he had thoroughly prepared himself in all that HE could do by himself.

Read all this again and again, until you can see how teaching this to your children will completely change the way they see revelation.

We learn bit by bit, using our own efforts and choices, and then God adds to the fruits of our efforts. All my life I have heard the phrase found in more than one verse, which says, “You will live by every word that goes forth from the mouth of God. He will give to the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept.” (D&C 98:11-12)

In preparation for this very moment, I’ve asked many people what they believe the word “precept” to mean, and they almost uniformly say, “idea” or “principle.” My guess is that people read “precept” as a combination of the words “principle” and “concept.” But a “precept” is actually a law, direction, commandment, rule of action.

Why does this matter? Because now “line upon line, precept upon precept” actually means that first God gives us IDEAS or knowledge (“lines”), either directly through revelation or perhaps through books and other teaching tools written by wise and experienced people—like taking piano lessons or studying out a problem. Then He gives us laws or commandments. If we then ACT on that direction—which we’ve discussed—and combine that experience with what we first learned, we qualify for the next “line” of knowledge.

We might accurately rephrase “line upon line, precept upon precept” as “knowledge, then direction, qualifying for more knowledge and direction, on and on.”

If we don’t follow the Lord’s directions or commandments about what we DO receive, it’s far less likely that we will be CAPABLE of hearing the next idea, or “line.” We must teach this to our children. It changes their CONCEPT of GOD. They tend to believe that God REWARDS us for listening and punishes us for not, whereas the truth is that as we listen, we simply are better prepared for the next revelation and action.

Allow me to describe a personal example of “line upon line.” Toward the end of my mission, in 1973, I wrote my first index/Topical Guide for the Book of Mormon. It was good. It was inspired. It brought me closer to the Spirit. And it was also incomplete, inadequate, and immature, omitting so many references that at the time I just didn’t understand.

Six years later the Church came out with an LDS edition of the Bible, along with a Topical Guide for all four Standard Works. At about the same time I began to create my own gospel index, which now includes nearly 20,000 files on gospel subjects, many with dozens of pages of entries. This index has greatly assisted me in understanding gospel principles, and when I began to write this Training, I found it more helpful than I can describe, supplying references and understanding that in some cases I had long forgotten.

This index was created line upon line—in this case, literally—as was this Training, over a period of many decades of experience, listening, mistakes, stumbling, and repentance. Such resources and understanding cannot happen suddenly. Our ability to recognize the Spirit is built in much the same way.

Feeding Revelation

Earlier we talked about several “aids” to revelation or ways to facilitate revelation: quiet, faith, writing. Here we’ll come from a slightly different but important perspective. Let’s talk about some ways to FEED revelation.

1. Prayer. Instead of teaching your children how to talk TO God, teach them how to LISTEN, as we’ve discussed extensively in this chapter—and will continue to discuss. Prayer is primarily listening, not talking. We have little to add to a conversation with the Creator of the universe. He, on the other hand, has plenty to give us and teach us.

2. Reading scripture. Teach your children that we don’t read the scriptures (A) because we’re “supposed to,” or (B) because there will be a quiz at the end to see if they know the names of the “other two” sons of Mosiah, or (C) so they can look spiritual in seminary or on their missions, or (D) to convince people of the truth. Teach them that the scriptures are written in “the LANGUAGE of the spirit,” so as you read the scriptures, you immediately place yourself in a potential attitude of ... no surprise here ... listening again. You become familiar with His words, His way of speaking. If your goal is to communicate with the French people, you’d first have to learn the French language. Kind of obvious, yes?

As you read the scriptures with your children, read them as written, but then TRANSLATE them into language that facilitates THEIR connection with the Spirit—which we discussed earlier in this chapter. For example, you might read what Alma said about his conversion in most of a chapter. I quote just a few verses here:

“I could remember my pains no more; yea, I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins no more.

“And oh, what joy, and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” (Alma 36:12, 15, 19-20)

I personally find these verses quite moving, but many children will not. Chew on that for a bit. Translate for them. Read it as Alma would say it to THEM. Read to them some version of this:

“When I didn’t feel loved, I lashed out at the world in anger. I did everything MY WAY, and I dragged everyone I could along with me. We partied and had fun, but I was miserable in my anger and rebellion. Sure, I would laugh out loud, but inside I hurt. I felt alone. And then God gave me a chance to really listen to Him, by literally knocking me to the ground and eliminating all my distractions by putting me in a kind of coma. When I finally, finally called out for His help, my pain was GONE. Gone. I saw that I had been living in the dark, but now I was surrounded by light. I had been eating bitter fruit, but now everything was sweet. I never talked about my pain in the past, but when it was gone, I realized that I had been in pain for a long time. It was awful, but when I felt surrounded by God’s love, the pain was GONE, replaced with a happiness I can hardly describe, a happiness that has lasted.” (Alma 36)

Or read to them what Isaiah said: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isaiah 1:18–19)

Yes, read the original, but then, for heaven’s sake, TRANSLATE those verses for your child: “Tommy, no matter what mistakes you have made, no matter how small you think you are, as you ask for my help, I will wipe all that away. Even though you might feel like you’re covered with tar from head to foot, you will be clean. You will radiate light like the sun, because you are my son, and I will help you do this.” (Isaiah 1:18-19)

3. (third way to feed revelation—by no means an exhaustive list) Obedience to the commandments. Why? Because we SHOULD keep the commandments? NO. Throughout the history of man, simple obedience has rarely proven to be effective. If we don’t feel sufficiently the pure love of Christ, we will respond with protecting behaviors, most of which are either sins or lead to sin. We need to teach our children to be obedient because it eliminates the DISTRACTIONS from the sweet, transformative, exalting influence of the Godhead.

We do not want to keep the commandments out of obligation alone. That won’t last—never has. We don’t want just to be worthy. No, we want to PREPARE to be like Him, and we can’t participate in His school while we’re speaking the language of the world and following the culture of the world.

4. (way to feed revelation) Singing. I never thought I’d say such a thing. I’m the kid who played the piano or the organ for the congregation from age twelve, and because of that and my disability in learning lyrics, I never learned the hymns. But more and more, I find myself singing the hymns as I wake up, without any intent to do so. One day, I went to bed foolishly harboring some negative thoughts toward the queen in my life, and I awoke singing the hymn, “Should You Feel Inclined to Censure.” That was memorably embarrassing and instructive. (Oh, and I could sing only the first six words—had to look up the rest. Blessed Google.) As we sing the hymns of Zion, again we are LISTENING, and we are practicing the language of God, this time literally with some measure of His voice in the accompanying melody.

5. (way to feed revelation) Service. Helping other people is just ONE reason to serve. Learning to be loving is another (big one). And yet another is that service places us in a position where we NEED revelation, and that’s when it happens most. There’s little NEED for revelation while we’re sitting on the couch eating Cheetos—and have no plans to get up. When we serve others, we often don’t know what we’re doing. On our own, we don’t know the emotional and spiritual needs of others, with their pain and wounds. We need the guidance of revelation to know what to do or say.

Good, Better, Best

I recall a talk that President Oaks gave on at least a couple of occasions about “Good, better, best.” (Ensign Nov 2007) He pointed out that we could benefit from seeing that sometimes we inappropriately settle for doing something good, while ignoring the possibility of moving on to something better or even best.

I am modifying this a little by suggesting that sometimes we can ONLY move from good decisions to better ones—usually gradually—and then, finally, to best. Allow me to illustrate this from the history of the Church.

On July 28, 1847, four days after the pioneers first arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young announced the construction of what would become the Salt Lake Temple. Good decision? Yes. Inspired? Yes, and amazing when we consider that only four days before, they had struggled into the valley, exhausted, with many sick, and facing what they knew would be mind-numbing and bone-breaking work. Were they done? No.

February 14, 1853, 5 ½ yrs later: The site of the Salt Lake temple was dedicated, then ground broken for the beginning of construction. Later, the cornerstone was laid, then the foundation. All this took a LOT of time and work. The individual granite blocks were hauled from 15 miles away, far up the canyon, on sloped and bumpy primitive roads, initially on ox-drawn carts that sometimes were crushed under the weight of stones as heavy as 5600 pounds.

The foundation was approaching completion (still good, inspired decisions and work) when they noticed that the weight of the stones was crushing the grout between them and leading to cracks in the foundation. Using the best knowledge AND inspiration available to them, the construction still proved only to be of fair quality, perhaps not even good—not good enough to continue, certainly.

So, they ripped out the foundation—requiring work I can scarcely comprehend even after all the years I’ve lifted and moved heavy objects —and they cut and fit the stones perfectly together without grout between them. It was much stronger. They had moved from good to better. And the foundation proved to be excellent for 150+ years if you count the time the construction continued on top of the foundation.

But with today’s science, they discovered that the temple’s foundation would not withstand a major earthquake, so they had to do some extensive work on the foundation and walls of the temple, using what is called “base isolation technology,” which is far better than the knowledge plus inspiration available to Brigham Young. God did not cheat and give them technology 150 years before it was developed. This version of the temple is even better than better.

And then we learn from the Savior that after the Millennium and final judgment, this entire earth will be made “like unto crystal and will BE a Urim and Thummim,” revealing all truth to those who live here. (D&C 130:8–9) What part will the Salt Lake Temple play in that? I don’t know, but I’m guessing that whatever part it plays will finally be BEST, and look how many steps will have been taken that were good and better before we got to “best.”

This pattern is demonstrated in us and in our children. Shortly we’ll be getting to very practical conversations about knowledge and revelation working together for your children. And you can use the illustration of the temple as you teach them.

Over and over, we see that the Lord gives us knowledge and commandments according to our preparation, willingness, and needs.

In 1833, the Lord gave “by revelation ... a Word of Wisdom for the benefit of the ... church ... not by commandment ... [but] for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the ... weakest of [the] saints.” (D&C 89:1‑4) Not a commandment, just wisdom.

How many years later did President John Taylor change the Word of Wisdom to a commandment, at which point the Quorum of the Twelve resolved to observe it? Almost 50 (1882). In 1908, it was announced that Word of Wisdom compliance was required for callings to leadership positions in the Church. (75 years after the original revelation). Not until 1919, 86 years after the revelation, was it made a condition for a temple recommend.

The Lord is VERY patient with us. He waited 86 years to hold the Church accountable for this relatively simple and straightforward principle. And then we get in a big hurry and beat ourselves up because it takes us a few years to learn faith? Or repentance? Or revelation? Line upon line we learn, with a Father who is infinitely patient. Let us strive to be the same with our children.

Incremental Revelation

I would suggest even a formula to express this growth of revelation line by line, or what I call “incremental revelation.” It’s revelation that steadily grows.

TRUTH = Total Experience + Revelation

Allow me to explain.

Let’s begin with truth. Truth is absolutely gradable. A thing can be:

absolutely true—like, “God lives.”
or it can be partly true (like, “all people have agency, or the right and ability to make their own choices.” We talked about that extensively in Chapter Three. Yes, we’re all given the right to choose at birth, but with innocence, ignorance, bad examples, pain, fear, protecting behaviors, Satan’s influence, the loud voices of the world, addictions, and mental illness, our ability to choose can become severely limited, even to the point of extinction.
or a thing can be false, like, “God will save us IN our sins,” which we learn from Amulek (Alma 11:34–37) to be untrue. He teaches us that we can be saved only FROM our sins with a combination of the Atonement and repentance.

So how do we get the most truth possible, so we can continually elevate our standard of truth and therefore our feelings and behaviors? Remember that only as truth changes our judgments can we change our feelings and behaviors, as we discussed with the series Event ® Judgment ® Feeling ® Reaction.

Let's look at an equation, not of numbers but of principles.

TRUTH = Total Experience + Revelation

First a definition, and then the equation will make more sense. What do I mean by “Total Experience?” I mean all the knowledge that we have ever put together from thinking, listening, reading, observing, making decisions, interacting with others, building stuff, working, playing, and even PAST revelation. I mean everything we know.

Our Total Experience is the sum of all we know, and because we are mortal and forget things, most of our Total Experience is UNCONSCIOUSLY imprinted on our brains. We know it even though we don’t consciously remember it or how we learned it. But it’s there, and it affects what we believe and do.

To illustrate further, with our conscious, rational mind we make simple decisions, like putting on a coat when the weather is cold, or preferring fresh bread to stale bread. With our Total Experience—which includes our conscious knowledge AND the “unconscious sum” kind—we enter a roomful of strangers and are inexplicably drawn to one person. The attraction is based on thousands of past experiences, most of which we don’t remember.

We use our Total Experience, mostly unconscious, to make our complex decisions, often the ones that we can’t explain on a spreadsheet. We use this experience to choose who to marry, where to live, what kind of car or dog we like, and more.

One way to increase the truth we possess is to increase our Total Experience by gathering more experience ourselves—by reading books, by practicing the piano, by reading scripture, by studying any subject. Then God can add truth to the baseline knowledge we already have. It’s critical to understand that. God doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t propel us forward twenty steps at a time. He adds the next ONE step or piece of truth to all the steps we’ve already taken and all the pieces we’ve already gathered—as He did with the renovation of the Salt Lake Temple.

I just spoke about my conversation with a stake president who did not understand that. He believed that God would simply gift any knowledge or talent to people based solely on need, specifically a need created by holding a calling. It doesn’t work like that.

I was inspired as I played the organ for stake conference to the point that people were emotionally and spiritually moved because the Holy Ghost added to my knowledge or Total Experience that included years of musical study and piano and organ practice. The Spirit could not do that with the stake president, who didn’t know how to play the organ at all. He was unprepared for the kind of inspiration I could receive BECAUSE of (1) my preparation and (2) my willingness to have that preparation expanded by the Spirit.

President Nelson once told a story about how during an operation he created a surgical procedure that had never been done before. He received a five-word message in his mind that made sense to him ONLY because he was already surgically trained, and then he had an image in his mind—a diagram—of how the surgery would look. Another way to say this is that his Total Experience was sufficient to enable him to understand the revelation needed to add up to the truth or knowledge to perform this new operation. Total Experience + Revelation equaled Sufficient Truth.

Such a revelation could not have been understood by someone not already trained. I have received almost exactly such words and images in creating surgical procedures never before done, just as I have understood gospel principles in ways that I had never before read or heard.

YOU can be similarly inspired in teaching your children, and you can teach them to do the same. It’s practical, it can be repeated, it can be soul-stretching, and it can be great FUN. That last word is an example of something I have never read or heard, and yet when that phrase entered my mind, I knew it was (1) true, and (2) not of my own creation.

Revelation is FUN. How could a glimpse into the mind of God not be fun? With practice you can get to the place where you ENJOY it, receive it regularly, and avoid the distractions of the world. And you’ll avoid the distractions of the world not so much because they involve breaking the commandments but more because they would interfere with your ability to participate in the FUN of communicating with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Our goal is not to keep the commandments. It’s to bask in the joy of eternal life, God’s way of living, in this life and the next, and breaking the commandments just takes us out of the light, life, and joy

You can teach your children to avoid sin, or to repent, not because sin is “bad” but because sin interferes with sitting down to celebrate at the wedding feast with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all those whose garments have been made white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 7:25). You want to help your children grow up seeking joy, not just avoiding sin.

Illustration:

Jimmy punched his sister, for reasons that don’t matter. Dad called Jimmy’s name, gestured for him to come, and led him into another room, shutting the door.

Dad said, “You’re not in trouble, Jimmy.”

Jimmy looked skeptical. Although Dad had been learning about the pure love of Christ, the results were still up for debate.

“I don’t care about you hitting your sister,” Dad said.

Jimmy would simply not have believed the words alone, but he heard a tone in Dad’s voice that he’d not recognized before. Jimmy did not speak.

Dad: “What DO I care about right now?”

In a “stroke of intelligence,” Jimmy knew the answer, an answer he could not have formulated on his own. “Me?” he asked.

“Yes,” Dad said, “and right now you’re feeling the Spirit tell you that that is true.”

Jimmy didn’t know what was happening to him, but he did feel different, and he found his eyes welling up with tears.

“You’re having a great feeling right now, Jimmy. You’re feeling the Spirit tell you that I love you and that God loves you. That matters a lot. I care about YOU being happy, Jimmy. Your sister will heal, she won’t die from your hitting her, and we can talk about the hitting another time—maybe. What matters to me right now is that you would not have hit her if you’d been happy, and you were unhappy because you were not feeling my love or God’s love. That’s my fault, and I’ll keep working on that. And I’ll help YOU learn. I’ll help you see how much happier you are (Dad holds up one finger) when you feel loved, and (two fingers) when you’re loving, and (three fingers) when you’re responsible. And you’ll learn that if you’re not doing those three things, you can’t be happy. THAT is why we have rules and commandments, so we don’t separate from God’s love, so we’re not unhappy. Just NOW you felt the difference between angry (when you hit your sister) and feeling peaceful and happy (when you felt loved and felt the Spirit). It’s very cool what you just felt.”

Notice that in just a moment between father and son:

Jimmy received a revelation of peace, a revelation of feeling.
Jimmy received a revelation of knowledge, knowing that his father was speaking the truth.
Dad received a revelation of what his son was feeling from the Spirit. (We haven’t talked about this kind of revelation yet, but we will shortly.)

Remember that we’ve been talking about preparing for revelation in the form of KNOWLEDGE, which changes our Judgments in the process we’ve mentioned many times: Event → Judgment → Feeling → Reaction. Look at the flow of that process. We receive knowledge through revelation, which changes our Judgment. That knowledge is instantly and naturally confirmed by communication from the Spirit in the form of Feelings, which give us the power to make different Choices, or Reactions. This process WORKS, and the better we understand it and notice, the more powerful and confident we become.

This concept of preparing ourselves for revelation to expand the knowledge we already have was stated succinctly by President Nelson when he said, “I know that good inspiration is based upon good information.” (Ensign May 2018)

Information is gathered bit by bit, slowly adding to the sometimes lifelong effort to understand or master a particular thing. AND often it is true that a second piece of truth—whether by our own learning or by the Spirit—can’t be added until AFTER the first piece is acquired, confirming that we learn line by line.

Example: Every General Conference we hear from the prophet of the Lord and his counselors, from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and from others who tell us what they are LEARNING. It never stops with them, and it need never stop with us. I have meticulously indexed General Conference talks line by line for more than 40 years, and I have watched these leaders learn new principles. I also know that the First Presidency and the Twelve bring in consultants from all over the world—paid and unpaid—to teach them what is going on in the world, in order to add to their Total Experience, so they can learn even better from the Spirit as they modify church policies, teaching, programs, and administration. They live the equation Truth = Total Experience + Revelation.

President Eyring said, “Years ago a senior member of the Twelve asked me, a junior member, to read a talk he was preparing for general conference. He said to me with a smile, ‘This is the 22nd draft of the talk.’

I remembered the counsel President Harold B. Lee had given me earlier with great emphasis: ‘Hal, if you want to get revelation, do your homework.’

“I did my homework, so when I heard the talk given, messages came to me far beyond the words that I had read and that he spoke ... I learned that we must pay the price ourselves of receiving revelation.” (Ensign April 2016)

God’s love is unconditional, but it turns out that His blessings—including His instruction—ARE conditioned on our preparation, which includes faith, study, obedience, and more.

Now, how can we directly apply all this to our kids? Let’s do it with the story of a real event:

Example of Revelation

Mike comes to his Dad and says, “I have a problem.”

Dad: Speak on.

Mike described how in a couple of months he would begin his second year of high school, and he had a conflict. “I’ve been invited to be on the high school swim team, but they practice every morning at exactly seminary time. I’m not sure what to do.”

Dad told Mike about the experience we’ve mentioned where God told Oliver Cowdery to work it out in his own mind and then ask if his decision was right. (D&C 9:7-9) Dad offered no advice.

Mike: “But I HAVE thought about it, and I prayed about it, and I’m still not sure whether I’m feeling what the Spirit is telling me, or I’m feeling my own excitement about being on the swim team.”

Dad: “You’re afraid of making a mistake.”

With some animation, Mike said, “Sure. I want to do the right thing, and I want to do both swimming and seminary.”

Dad: “You’re a good person. Go talk to God again. This time pray without fear of making a mistake. I believe in you. I believe you won’t make a BAD decision. You only need to make a GOOD one, one guided by Mormon’s definition of what is good.”

They read Moroni 7:5-17 and talked about the characteristics of “good.”

Dad said, “You’re here to learn to make decisions, and you’re a good person, so you’ll make a good decision. And with practice, your choices will get better and better. You might not make this choice perfectly. We’ll see. You’ll learn a lot from it, and that matters. So, try again. No fear. LISTEN instead of trying to convince God of what you want. Be humble. You’ll figure it out. We’ll talk again.”

After a couple of days, Mike returned to talk with his father. “I’ve been thinking and praying. Being on the swim team will help me get into a good college. And I already know the stuff they teach in seminary. You taught me all that. So I think I’ll swim and miss seminary.”

Dad: Good for you, Mike. You thought about a difficult decision. You worked it out, and then you prayed about your answer. And now you’ve made a decision. This is great practice. Let’s look at it together. I’m NOT going to make this decision for you, so now we’re just talking. And I’m not trying to change your decision. We’re just learning together. Clear?

Mike: Okay.

Dad: We read Mormon’s definition of Good (Moroni 7:16-24). Let’s examine your decision using those criteria. That work for you?

Mike (with a little skepticism): Okay

They went through the elements of those verses, talking about whether his decision would lead him to serve God and believe in Christ.

Dad: I think you could swim and still serve God and believe in Christ. And you would accomplish the three elements that lead to happiness that we’ve talked about in family meetings: feel loved, be loving, and be responsible. I trust you. I do have a question. Is there a way you could expand your decision so you could swim AND still accomplish the benefits of seminary?

Mike said, “I don’t know. I could think about it and pray about it.” So he did, and they talked again.

Mike: I talked to the seminary teacher and told her that I wouldn’t be attending seminary. I think she was disappointed, but I asked her anyway if there was another way for me to learn all the seminary materials. She said there was a ton of stuff: online seminary, Come Follow Me stuff on BYU TV, and more. And you and me could meet once a week to go over what I’m learning.

Dad: I’m impressed. Your decision has gone from good to better. Do you FEEL good about this?

Mike: The more I study the options, and the more I listen for the Spirit, the better I feel about it. And I’m getting a better feeling for what hearing the Spirit is like.

Dad: That is a lot of learning, and I’m happy for you. You’ve made a tough decision with thought and inspiration, and you have more familiarity with the Spirit. That’s a win. The decision itself is secondary. You did good work making the decision.

Mike: Do you think I made the right decision?

Dad smiled: I would tell you if I thought your decision would hurt you. I don’t think it will. Is it the BEST decision? Maybe we’ll never know, but you learned about how to MAKE a decision, and that’s important.

As parents we’re not here to make sure our children make only good decisions. We’re here to teach them HOW to make good decisions, and Mike’s father did that. So can you.

Mike was willing to listen to his father, and his father trusted Mike’s decision. But sometimes a child needs a little more guidance. They get lost and need you to help them see the tools available, the tools we’ve discussed in this chapter and which we’ll continue to discuss.

What if they don’t make a good decision? What if your child carefully examines the options and says, “Mom, I’ve studied this, and the best way for me to save up money for a mission is to start a business. And I read online that the best profit margins are in selling cocaine.” That might be a time to re-evaluate the decision based on what is “good.”

So does all this mean that an answer could be right but imperfect or incomplete? Yes, MOST of the time—again like the Salt Lake Temple foundation. Tell your kids that. It takes the pressure off them to get things “right” or perfect. All they can do is their best.

Nephi says, “My soul delights in plainness because this is how God works among us. The Lord God gives light to the understanding because he speaks to us according to our understanding.” (2 Nephi 31:3)

God talks to us in ways we can understand, in ways we’re prepared for. Sometimes we’re not prepared, so we will make mistakes or decisions that are less than “best.”

Elder Scott said, “When we seek inspiration to help make decisions, the Lord gives gentle promptings. These require us to think, to exercise faith, to work, to struggle at times, and to act. Seldom does the whole answer to a decisively important matter or complex problem come all at once. More often, it comes a piece at a time, without the end in sight.” (Ensign Nov 1989)

The very definition of faith is to step into the unknown, so sometimes we will stumble, or our steps will be awkward. That’s okay. God knew it would be so. And God is merciful. In faith there is no sensible place for fear.

We’re here to teach our children how to listen or perceive or recognize a piece at a time, not all at once. We need to make this process far more relaxed and even enjoyable for them. They will NOT make better decisions if we control them, manipulate them with obligation, or make them feel guilty. But we do need to consistently love them and teach them. They won’t learn revelation from our inattention.

Another Example:

Let’s look at another real-life example of teaching revelation. Each of these illustrates the process from another practical perspective:

Kristen explained to her mother that she had to do a major presentation in front of her class at school. It would take a lot of preparation, it would determine a major portion of her grade, and she had never done a public presentation like this before.

Mom: Scared?

Kristen: Out of my mind.

Mom: You know what you’re going to say?

Kristen: A little, but not really.

Mom taught Kristen how to ask God first for a sense of peace, so that fear wouldn’t destroy all possibility of preparing her presentation in an acceptable way. Fear makes us deaf and blind.

Kristen spent hours and hours preparing, but she came to Mom again, crying. “Nothing is working. I get afraid and confused, and I don’t know how to keep my thoughts together.”

Mom arranged to sit with Kristen while she worked on her presentation, for ten or twenty minutes at a time. She just sat with her, occasionally putting her hand on Kristen’s shoulder while she worked. Mom’s love and peace of mind helped Kristen relax and prepare more calmly. But she was still afraid.

Mom said something like this: “I know people who teach and speak professionally. They do presentations with no apparent effort, like it was nothing to them. And I’ve asked them if they get nervous. Mostly they say no, but then they explain that in the beginning it was a nightmare. They were so nervous they could hardly speak. They trembled and lost track of where they were in their talks or lessons. They said that the secret to great speaking is lots of bad speaking. So you’re just at the beginning of that process. You’re SUCCEEDING right now, just by persisting in your preparation, no matter how it goes. This is how you get better at anything.”

On the morning of the presentation, the family prayed together with Kristen that she would feel the peace of the Spirit during her talk, and she went to school and presented her talk. Later in the day, she came home crying, saying, “I did a terrible job.”

Pay attention to what Mom says next. She doesn’t tell the traditional lie, “Oh, I’m sure you did fine.” We do our children a terrible disservice when we encourage them with positive lies. Positive lies are still lies. These lies lead to false encouragement, and our children learn not to trust us.

Mom said, “You probably did. Welcome to life, my dear. This is exactly how we learn. Remember? I told you that professional speakers all started off doing lots BAD presentations. They HAD to fail at presenting before they could learn HOW to present and HOW to listen to the Spirit. You’re no different. These are eternal laws, baby. Failure is part of learning.

“You’re a newcomer to both subjects: presentations and listening to the Spirit. YOU did the best you could with your level of experience and preparation. The HOLY GHOST did the best HE could with your level of experience and preparation. You’re learning how to prepare and to listen. You’ll get better every time. Really. It’s true that you didn’t put out a great finished project, but you DID do a great job of LEARNING, and that’s why we’re here, kid.”

Kristen said, “My grade will stink.”

“Maybe, but the other kids weren’t professionals either. You’ll do better the next time. You’ll prepare better. You’ll be able to listen to the words and the peace of the Spirit better. You learned that failure doesn’t kill you. Good job. You learned about LEARNING, and that’s a lot more important than learning about how to do a presentation.”

Kristen was not calmed immediately, but it made a huge difference that Mom WAS listening to the Spirit as she said all that to her daughter. Kristen could feel her mother’s calm. She could feel a measure of the Spirit, and that’s how the learning begins. It’s the LEARNING we need. It’s fully enrolling in God’s school that matters, not what level we’re on.

The Order of Revelation

Sometimes we ask questions of the Lord in the wrong order, and we’re so fixated on the answer to Question C that we fail to realize that He is either ANSWERING questions A and B first, or He’s inspiring us to ASK questions A and B first, answers to which are required before an answer to Question C could even be understood. We ask for the answer to a calculus problem when we don’t understand algebra. God simply could NOT answer our question in a way that we would understand because we’re not prepared for it.

Let’s look at a highly practical example of this idea

Brad came home from school and said, “Nobody likes me.”

Mom did not jump into the victim pit with Brad as she answered, “Good to know. You won’t have to worry about inviting people to your next birthday party, will you?”

Surprised at her answer, Brad blurted out the well-known word and tone, “Maaaahhm!”

Mom smiled. “So what happened at school?”

“I don’t have any friends.”

Mom could have said, “Why don’t you go and pray about it?” but I can tell you what the results of that suggestion would be 99.9% of the time. She could have busied herself with something and ignored him. She could have pacified him with one of the usual lies, like, “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true” or “Be patient. It will be all right.” But instead Mom listened to the Spirit as she said, “Let’s look at some possible explanations for you not having many friends, and let’s figure out what we could do about it.”

Brad was intrigued. They talked and wrote for some time, and we could summarize their discussion with a chart, with column (1), Reasons For No Friends and column (2), Solutions. Let’s look at an abbreviated version of the chart (two columns, not consecutively, as I have it below):

Reason: You’re too stupid for words and don’t deserve any friends. (Mom might as well say it, because that’s what Brad is thinking.)

Solution: None, because you’re not stupid.

Reason: Almost all friendships are based on trading imitations of love: praise, power, pleasure, and more. If you don’t have friends, probably you’re not trading adequately. You’re not skilled in trading praise, for example (Chapter Two).

Solution: You could learn to trade better. I could even teach you, but you don’t want to do that, because friendships based on trading never last. And you become a prisoner to pleasing people.

Reason: You’re not fun to be around.

Solution: Mom said, “That might be true. You’re often unkind to your brother and sister. Sometimes you bully them. Often you argue with them and insist on being right. Why am I telling you how you treat your siblings? Because that’s how you would tend to treat others.

Brad, “But I don’t bully anybody at school.”

Mom: “I believe you, but you ARE afraid. You’re uncomfortable around people. At home you sometimes make your fear less by bullying, and you get away with it because you’re bigger. But that doesn’t work at school. You’re still afraid there, so you probably act timid, or awkward, or withdrawn, and that makes people uncomfortable. Either they would withdraw from you, or they might even pick on you. Your fear puts a target on your back.”

Brad was amazed at how accurate Mom was in her description of him at school. He wondered if she had planted a camera on him somewhere. “So what can I do?” he asked.

Mom: You’re afraid because you’re not confident about who you are. You’re not sure you’re good enough, and that’s MY fault.

Mom told Brad how she had hurt him—with the usual irritation and inattention—which had made him feel less than worthwhile—a version of the Initial Truth Telling found in Chapter Six. She added, “You’ll have to change how you feel about YOURSELF before you worry about finding friends. That process would begin at home.”

Mom outlined a plan for her spending more time with Brad, loving and teaching time. She also said, “And from now on I’ll pay more attention to the occasions when you’re unkind to your brother and sister. If you are unkind to them, I’ll just ask you how you’re feeling right then. I might say, ‘Are you feeling loved and loving right now?’ And I’ll be asking NOT to stop you from being unkind but so you can SEE that you’re doing it. As you learn to feel more loved, and as you’re aware of your unkindness, you’ll naturally choose to be loving more and more. As you learn how to be confident and loving at home, you’ll carry that to school, and more people will naturally be attracted to you as friends. Really, it works like that. And you and I will talk about how you can specifically address people at school. But first comes the practicing at home.”

Mom did as she described, discussing Brad’s behavior every time he was unkind. She did this in a loving, measured, no-hurry way. His feelings and behavior began to change as Mom helped him change his judgments of himself and others (Event ® Judgment ® Feeling ® Reaction). As he became more confident at home, he DID attract friends at school. It was remarkable.

What does this have to do with revelation? We have to ask questions in the right order. Brad wanted his mother and God to tell him how to have more friends. Wrong first question. Brad first need to learn:

Why he was angry and unkind

How he could feel more loved and confident as he interacted with his mother

How he could be more loving and confident with his siblings

Mom had the inspiration to help Brad change his first question, and Brad was inspired to listen and to follow her guidance. During it all, they often spoke about listening to the Spirit and about following Christ. The whole family raised their level of gospel understanding.

Practice

Here I repeat a question I’ve asked in multiple ways: How do we learn to recognize the Spirit? And teach that to our children? Practice, like anything else.

We ask, we listen, we receive, we recognize, we make decisions.

We act, we write, we remember.

We obey and bring ourselves into harmony with the commandments of Him whose revelation we’re seeking.

Each recognition makes us more experienced with the voice of the Spirit.

We learn to contribute to the harmony of universal truth as we first listen to the orchestra, learn our individual instrument, and make our own contribution to the overall sound.

In the beginning we may NOT know the difference between our own voice and the voice of the Spirit. But if we continue listening humbly, if we are WILLING to listen, if we take action, we will LEARN the language and voice of the Spirit. And we will teach our children to do the same. We won’t worry about the occasional mistake—fear never leads to better spiritual sensitivity—because we actually believe in the love of Jesus Christ and in His Atonement. We know that He will continue to be with us and love us and help us avoid the distractions of the world—fear, protecting behaviors, addictions, sins—that keep us from tuning in to the frequency of the Spirit’s voice.

Gradually, we speak His language more fluently. Our judgment of spiritual things becomes more mature and solid. The Holy Ghost WANTS to speak to us. He will fine-tune our mind, give us eternal perspectives and judgments, make us aware of our feelings, and help us gain the courage to act on the revelation we receive. As we interact with the Spirit, we won’t just receive revelation. We will be changed by it, purified and strengthened by it. And as these changes happen, we recognize God’s voice steadily better. Gradually we become one with “the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16).

Qualify

We’ve all heard many talks about qualifying to hear the Spirit. This is often called being worthy of the Spirit. And all these speakers say, Keep the commandments. We hear that the Spirit will not dwell in unholy temples (Alma 7:21; Helaman 4:24), so we conclude that we must be clean before He can be with us. But how clean?

If perfect cleanliness were required (sinlessness):

Nobody would be eligible to listen to the Spirit.
How could we ever be prompted to continue a path of repentance, untouched by the peace and guidance of the Spirit?

God requires only that we do our best. Amaleki said, “Come unto Christ ... and offer your whole souls as an offering unto him, and continue praying, and don’t quit, and you will be saved. (Omni 1:26) God requires our whole soul, as it is RIGHT NOW, including our flaws and mistakes. He requires our full commitment as we are, and that’s enough to qualify for the Spirit.

My words to you right now are that God is far more lenient in qualifying us for recognizing the voice of the Spirit than we might think. If I can qualify, so can you.

Commitment matters more than our present purity. If sinlessness alone were the determining factor in hearing the Spirit, the Church would be led by a group of four-year-olds—all sinless. No, there’s more to qualification than lack of sin. A WILLING heart (Exodus 35:5) is what the Lord requires of us to engage in His service. (D&C 64:22, 34)

Results

Another way to know the voice of the Spirit is to test the results. President Hinckley said, “You recognize the promptings of the Spirit by the fruits of the Spirit—that which enlightens and builds up and makes us better ... is from the Spirit of God.” (Teachings of Gordon B. Hinckley, 260–61).

He added, “That’s the test, when all is said and done. Does it persuade one to do good, to rise, to stand tall, to do the right thing, to be kind, to be generous? Then it is of the Spirit of God. . .” (Preach My Gospel, 2004)

Jesus told us how we could know the truth of a thing when He said, “If you want to know whether a doctrine is from God, live it. Do God’s will.” (John 7:16-17)

Never judge the correctness of your revelation by the reaction of others to what you say or do. Often the most correct truth or choice is most offensive to people who need it the most. On one occasion Christ healed a man with a withered hand, right in front of the Jewish leaders. And what was their response to the Son of God as He correctly listened to the Spirit and exercised His priesthood? “The Pharisees immediately began to talk with others about how they could destroy him.” (Mark 3:1-6)

Teach your children that when they do the right thing—when they are led by the Spirit—people often will be offended or disagree with them vigorously. The truth is found in listening to the Spirit again, not in listening to detractors, who are easily found wherever we go.

Talk about YOUR revelations

A very powerful tool in teaching children revelation is for you to talk about your own. As you talk about the daily, “small” revelations you receive, your children will learn more about revelation than from reading about the First Vision or parting of the Red Sea.

Just as you are the best example they’ll ever have of repentance—ONE the Savior Himself could not provide—SO are you the most powerful example they’re likely to see and hear of revelation. As far as we know, the Savior was inspired with every word He spoke, but He never described the process He went through to receive those revelations. He may simply have had the companionship of the Spirit all the time, so closely were they united. But we have no details, nothing to help our children to learn how from Him.

Earlier in this chapter we talked about a mother who loved her son, Ryan, who had been teased at school. She listened to the Spirit when He helped her change her perspective about Ryan’s bad mood. She listened again when He guided her about how to talk to her son.

What I didn’t say in either account of the mother and son was that after she expressed the importance of her love and God’s love to Ryan, she TOLD him that initially she misjudged his mood as complaining and inconvenient, but, she said, “Suddenly words that were not mine came into my mind. The Spirit said ‘He needs your love.’ I also felt the words, ‘You’re wrong,’ meaning that my first judgment of you was wrong. Ryan, I’m learning to listen to the Spirit just as you are.” This had a profound effect on him. His mother had the faith and courage to share how she was learning to listen, just as Ryan was.

During this chapter I have shared with you a number of revelations that have come to me and others. Share such experiences with your children. How better to teach them the revelation that will enable them to survive and thrive in these last days, which is essential according to Presidents Nelson and Joseph Smith, as I mentioned at the top of this section.

TELL THEM

After all we’ve said about revelation and teaching it, there’s a very important step we have not covered.

How does an athletic coach function?

He tells the players how to play the game.

Sometimes he tells them about their mistakes.

Sometimes tells them when they’re doing it right.

All good teachers do this.

When I taught surgery residents, I didn’t just point out mistakes. It was equally important to tell them when they did something RIGHT. This was not praise, just information. In doing something new, how would they know when they get something right unless someone experienced tells them?

It’s the same with revelation. On occasion we need to TELL our children when they are receiving revelation of any kind: their feelings, the knowledge they receive, or their change in perspective.

There is a huge risk here. You could use this to CONTROL your kids, to get them to do what you want, or to manipulate them to seek your approval. Your TONE is very important.

But no, you’re just informing them, much as we use positive feedback, not praise, when children do anything right or well—as I described in Chapter Two.

It might seem arrogant to claim that we would tell someone—even our children—when they’re receiving PERSONAL revelation. But we’ve been APPOINTED to help our children with every aspect of their life that could lead them to eternal life—or lead them away.

When Alma spoke to the people of Gideon, he said, “Do you believe these things I have taught you? I know you believe them because the Spirit tells me so, and my joy is great because your faith is strong about the things I have spoken.” (Alma 7:17-18)

Alma felt by the Spirit that other people were feeling the Spirit as He testified of the truth. By revelation he knew that other people were receiving revelation.

And Nephi said, “When a man speaks by the power of the Holy Ghost, the power of the Holy Ghost carries it unto the hearts of the children of men.” (2 Nephi 33:1) And, according to Alma, the Spirit can also reveal to the one speaking by the Holy Ghost what is in the hearts of those who are experiencing the Spirit.

In the latter days this has been confirmed, when the Lord described in D&C 46 a long list of gifts of the Spirit, and He concluded the list by saying that “the bishop and other leaders will know all these gifts so that no one will pretend to have a gift they don’t.” (D&C 46:27)

That is a powerful point for parents. They NEED you to guide them as they experience the Spirit, because this is a new world—a spiritual world—for them, and you are their guide.

I once knew a father with a young son, David. David had just begun to demonstrate increasing anger, use of video games, and symptoms consistent with ADHD. His parents had considered putting him on medication.

Dad was just beginning to understand the pure love of Christ. He admitted that he’d never been loved himself, so he’d not been unconditionally loving with his children. In the process, he’d neglected David a lot, and hurt him with criticism and anger.

Dad wanted to do the initial truth telling with David—as described in Chapter Six—but he was too afraid to do it alone, so he asked for my help. The three of us met, and I told David about where all his troubled behaviors came from: pain. And I told him that his father had never loved him because he didn’t know HOW.

At the end of talking to David, I could see that he was pretty shocked by all this, even though he had almost no facial expression. He had withdrawn emotionally. I asked him if he had questions, or if he knew how he felt. His face did not twitch, not a muscle, and there was no answer.

I said, “David, you’re feeling relieved. You’re feeling like, ‘Wow, finally I understand why I’ve been angry and unhappy all these years. Now I know why I have trouble in school and why I play video games. Maybe there’s a solution.’”

David began to nod his head and sob quietly.

David’s face gave away none of his feelings. I simply knew from the Spirit how he was feeling. My assessment did not come from experience because after such a meeting I have seen children feel afraid, angry, withdrawn, sad, depressed, and more—quite a spectrum.

Why would God allow me to know how David was feeling? Because David didn’t KNOW how he was feeling, and the confusion was making him feel even more lost, even more deaf and afraid. He didn’t know what to do next. When I told him that he was feeling relief—not his usual anger or withdrawal—it was a huge revelation to him, which was then also confirmed to him by the Spirit. It changed the entire tone of the meeting for David to know that his feelings could change so dramatically AND be understood by someone else.

Days later, the same father sat with David and simply held out his hand. David pulled away at first, so Dad kept his hand on David’s knee for what he described as a “long time.” Finally, David put his hand on Dad’s hand and left it there. Tears streamed down his face.

Dad said, “How are you feeling right now?”

David: I don’t know

Dad: You’re feeling loved, son. Probably for the first time—at least by me. You’re feeling loved. And God is telling you that. You’re feeling God’s love too.

It was a moment that neither the father nor son would ever forget. It wasn’t therapy. It wasn’t just a heart-to-heart conversation. No, Dad was loving David by the power of the Spirit, and he was teaching his son about the Spirit. And David was feeling it, the Spirit having carried his father’s love into his heart. (2 Nephi 33:1)

I’ve given you at least two other examples in this chapter of a parent telling a child—by the Spirit—that the child was feeling the Spirit. You might remember that Ryan’s mother was communicating her love for him. She did so through the Spirit, and by the same Spirit she felt the Holy Ghost carry her love into Ryan’s heart. And she told him what he was feeling.

We also talked about Jimmy, who hit his sister. In the conversation that followed, Jimmy received a “stroke of intelligence” that Dad confirmed as the “voice” of the Spirit.

You can have similar experiences with your children. Don’t be afraid to do that. Trust in the Holy Ghost to teach you the “truth of all things,” (Moroni 10:5) which would include the occasions when your children are receiving revelation. What a powerful guide for your children.

Not everything

Amidst all this talk of listening to the Spirit, it is wisdom to understand that God won’t help us make every decision. There is much to be learned simply by using everything we have learned—our Total Experience—and exercising our own agency.

President Oaks once said that “[A person may have] a strong desire to be led by the Spirit of the Lord but ... unwisely extends that desire to the point of wanting to be led in all things. A desire to be led by the Lord is a strength, but it needs to be accompanied by an understanding that our Heavenly Father leaves many decisions for our personal choices. Personal decision making is one of the sources of the growth we are meant to experience in mortality. Persons who try to shift all decision making to the Lord and plead for revelation in every choice will soon find circumstances in which they pray for guidance and don't receive it. For example, this is likely to occur in those numerous circumstances in which the choices are trivial or where either choice is acceptable. We should study things out in our minds ... and if we do not receive guidance, we should act upon our best judgment.” He adds that if we insist on God speaking when there is no answer, we may be deceived by false revelation. (Ensign Oct. 1994)

Signs

It is VERY common for us as mortal beings—with all our fears and uncertainty and desire to get it right—to look for shortcuts to every process we encounter. We want things to be easier. Well, duh, who wouldn’t? I’d rather haul a 100-pound rock across the yard than a 200-pound one. But sometimes a 200-pound rock MUST be moved, and then looking for ways to exert 100 pounds of lift to move the rock is going to be an enormous waste of time.

One way we try to shortcut learning revelation is to look for signs. I’m not talking about the kind of signs Jesus spoke against when he said, “Only a wicked people look for a sign.” (Matthew 12:39) No, I’m talking about daily indications, subtle hints from God that we need to do a certain thing. I have heard many people say, for example:

“I decided to pay my tithing, and the very next week I got a raise. That proves that tithing is a true principle.” No, we learn from the Spirit that tithing is a true principle. Signs are not reliable indicators of truth, and we need to watch for sign-seeking in our children.
I couldn’t decide whether to go to college at William and Mary or Ohio State. But yesterday I got a call from my old friend William, and I found out that his girlfriend’s name is Mary. I think it’s a sign that I should go to William and Mary.

God does not send us signs that peek out of the bushes and point out the way to us. No, He requires that we learn by faith, repentance, and listening to the Spirit. There are no shortcuts.

SUMMARY

Let’s briefly summarize what we’ve learned about revelation. It can help to know the characteristics of divine revelation, because then we can know it when it comes, distinguish it from our own thoughts and feelings, and learn to behave in ways that invite deeper and more frequent communication.

Revelation can come as feelings, knowledge, new perspectives, or directions to act.

It is accompanied by a feeling of peace and love, and sometimes the revelation IS just peace or love or both.

It can come as sudden strokes of ideas, with each of those words being a clue about the nature of revelation.

It persuades you to do good, to feel loved, to be loving, to be responsible, and to follow Christ.

And last, a brief summary of how we FEED the conditions that enable us to listen to the Holy Ghost:

Listen, be aware, pay attention, focus, and don’t be distracted by fear, protecting behaviors, exhaustion, or the excessive DOING of things.

Choose faith

Write them down

Act on them

Be patient, diligent, never give up as you learn line upon line, precept upon precept

Be grateful for every bit of revelation and constantly prepare yourself to be ready for more, which will come incrementally

Pray, read the word of God, sing the hymns of God, be obedient to revelation, serve others

Teach your children all of this, including your process of revelation and occasionally identifying theirs.

A Further Guide

Let’s examine the three sources of information we receive, and examine the qualities of each. They may be able to help us a lot in distinguishing between revelation from the Spirit, our own thoughts, and the whisperings of Satan. I would have given anything to have such a resource as a young man.

Qualities	Source of "Truth"
	Revelation	Our Own Mind	Satan
Feelings	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ideas	Yes	Yes	Yes
Causes fear	No	Often	Yes
Fear promotes	No	Yes	Yes
Leads to good	Yes	Maybe	No
Intrusion of ideas	Yes	Sometimes	Yes
Provokes anger	No	Often	Yes
Leads to Christ	Yes	Sometimes	No
Sudden strokes	Yes	Not Usually	Yes
Teaches responsibility	Yes	Sometimes	No
Fills with love	Yes	Sometimes	No
Promotes loving	Yes	Sometimes	No
Fear promotes	No	Sometimes	Yes
Anger promotes	No	Sometimes	Yes
Requires faith	Yes	No	No
NEW thoughts	Yes	Occasionally	No
Predictable	No	Sometimes	Sometimes
Incremental	Yes	Often	Sometimes
Promotes forgiving	Yes	Rarely	No
Patience involved	Yes	Rarely	No
Learned	Yes	Somewhat	No
Reflexive/Reactive	No	Usually	Yes
Full Sentences	Rare	Sometimes	No
Causes fear	No	Often	Yes
Directions	Yes	Sometimes	Yes

Chapter Six

Chapter Eight