Building a Deeper Connection with God and Jesus Christ through Personal Revelation - Episode 11

Unlock the secrets to cultivating a profound spiritual connection with God and Jesus Christ. I explore the transformative journey of spiritual growth, emphasizing the courage required to embrace change and the importance of altering perceptions to enhance receptiveness to divine communication. Like building muscle, spiritual development demands effort and persistence, and sometimes, the silence of unanswered prayers is part of a greater plan. You'll gain valuable insights into trusting God's perfect timing and guidance, empowering you to actively engage in your spiritual journey.

Discover how to recognize and act upon the divine desires placed in your heart by the Lord, guiding you towards the path intended for you. Let's delve into various forms of spiritual revelation—whether it's a burning in the bosom, intuition, or even familiar-sounding voices—and how acting on these promptings can strengthen your testimony and foster a deeper relationship with Heavenly Father. Through practical examples and heartfelt encouragement, I invite you to listen, ponder, decide, and act on these messages, reminding you that you are loved and supported every step of the way.

Chapters

• 0:10 Developing a Spiritual Relationship With God
• 12:00 Receiving and Acting on Spiritual Guidance

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:10

let's talk spirituality. Let's talk a little bit about developing the spirit, the spiritual life that you want to live. This is, todd, talking to you with your Spirit, by Design. Let's design the spiritual life that you want. Don't just be stuck in a rut, don't be stuck on the fence in the fight between good and evil. You know, last episode I talked and ranted a little bit about the fight between good and evil and the fact that there is no time to sit on the sidelines anymore. The days of being an impartial observer of the world are over. I implied, and even outright stated, that it is necessary to be able to discern truth via personal revelation and to develop a relationship with God and Jesus Christ In order to survive and thrive with your soul intact. You see, this world's gone a little bit crazy, hasn't it? That begs a serious question, or an obvious question how does one go about doing that? How does one build a deep understanding of personal revelation? And yes, I'm talking kind of in a quiet tone. I'm in a hotel on a layover on one of my trips, and it's a good time to talk about these things.

Speaker 1: 1:50

How do you develop a deep understanding of personal revelation? First and foremost, you have to desire it. The desire for change, the desire for growth and improvement are required before any meaningful change is possible. I've spoken about this relentlessly you can't keep doing the things you've always been doing and expect a different result. Change requires work changing your perceptions, your receptiveness. You'll need a baseline knowledge of the process as well as an understanding of yourself, how the Spirit speaks to you. Do you know how the Spirit speaks to you? Have you observed over your lifetime? If not, these are things to ponder on. Pondering is such a good way to get to the knowledge that you're seeking, because often we're constantly just going, going, going. Our brain is going and we don't take the time to stop and think, stop and ponder about the task or the subject at hand. So how do you receive information? Because everyone receives revelation in their own way. The Spirit communicates to you in a way unique to you. So gaining an understanding of your own receptivity is important. In fact, it's paramount.

Speaker 1: 3:32

First things first, know that Heavenly Father wants to talk to you. You want to talk to your kids or your parents or whoever right? Well, your Heavenly Father, you're a child of your Heavenly Father and he wants to talk to you. He wants to inspire you. He wants to guide you. He wants to help you to recognize truth in spite of the lies that Satan uses to try and deceive you. He can guide you in many aspects of your life, not just spiritual. You know, tiffany and I have strived to always listen and act on inspirations for where and when to move, even when others thought we were crazy. We've had a much more interesting life because of listening to the Spirit and I've told many of the different stories over the last few years of running Todd Talks and now Spirit by Design.

Speaker 1: 4:32

He wants to guide you and because of this we often make the mistake of wanting him to explicitly tell us what to do and therefore, without specific information, we often struggle to act or make decisions. It's really one of my personal pet peeves. I really like the talk given a few years ago by President Uchtdorf, where he counseled us to not wait to be told specifically what to do, but after prayerful consideration we should make a decision and act on it. If it's not the correct path, we will know and should be willing to adjust. But the Lord often expects us to make decisions based on the information that we have and then ask for corroboration of our decisions. He wants you to choose and not be told everything that you're supposed to do. Remember last episode. The war in heaven was fought over the freedom to choose for ourselves or being forced to and told everything to do. Freedom is the key in our responsibility to maintain and respect. While the Lord will not tell you everything that you should do, he will guide you on the path you should be on to live your best life. As I said in the beginning of this episode, he wants you to have a relationship with him. He wants to speak to you and he will speak to you. In the Bible we read that Moses spoke to the Lord, adam spoke to the Lord, all the prophets spoke to the Lord.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I've become somewhat of a gym rat over the last couple of weeks as I've been trying to get into good shape. What I've noticed is that it's a struggle and hurts to build muscle. You have to push, strain the muscles, which cause little micro tears in them. The body then heals those tears and the muscles get stronger and grow. Learning to live by and acting on and receiving revelation is just like that. You see, you have to work at it. You have to push your limits and stretch your spiritual muscles. In doing so you will gain understanding and growth. You will recognize more often the promptings and you will see progress.

Speaker 1: 7:05

But like strengthening a muscle, growth is not always linear. You will have times when you question if you're receiving anything at all. At those times remember to let go and let God. Don't be like a cougar from Top Gun who was holding on too tight and lost his edge. I liken that to being so concerned about getting answers on your timetable that you forget that God's plan and timetable don't always match up with yours. When you get anxious or stressed over not receiving answers in a timely manner, in a timely manner, let go and let God, as the country song says. Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers because sometimes not receiving the answer you are asking for is actually the answer.

Speaker 1: 8:00

Now to discuss how to know if you're receiving an answer, I'll go over some of the ways that I know he answers. You know cover some scripture. Maybe that discusses some methods. But remember he answers you individually and you'll need to learn the several ways he responds to you. He responds to you Now. Some common methods that he uses are a still small voice whispering to you audibly in your heart and your head, a still small voice speaking to your spirit, a warm feeling in your chest. Dreams, a feeling or desire that is good, that appears out of nowhere. A feeling or desire that is good that appears out of nowhere. Knowledge, meaning you just suddenly know something. Intuition, a physical feeling in your gut, and many more. Personally, I've experienced most of those, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:03

There's a story I share routinely, since I'm always talking to captains that I fly with and sharing the story of how I ended up becoming an airline pilot and flying for Delta. I never wanted to fly for the airlines, never lines, never and I was on a non-flying assignment with the military for several years and had been out of flying for about five years when suddenly I got the urge to go get my airline pilot's license. I don't know why. I'd never wanted to do this, and so what happened was I went to Ireland six different times and took the tests to spend a year studying and working on getting my European airline transport life pilots license. For an entire year I was in the book studying, finished my tour, because that was when we were living in Serbia, finished my tour there and my next assignment was to be an instructor pilot in basic pilot training for the Air Force, moved back to the US, went to basic pilot training instructor school and the desire to fly for the airlines in Europe it disappeared. But had I not been in the books for a year after not having flown for five years, six years at that point I would have been struggling and so far behind. But because I had spent a year in the books, all I had to learn was the new airplane because my base knowledge was back to where it needed to be. So the Lord actually put that desire into my heart at that time to help get me where I wouldn't struggle as much in instructor school for basic pilot training. Fast forward, a few years later, the desire to suddenly fly for the airlines came back. To suddenly fly for the airlines came back, went and got my airline transport pilot license and now I'm flying for Delta and I'm loving it. 20, 30, 5, 40 years I never wanted to fly for the airlines and now I am and loving, absolutely loving it.

Speaker 1: 12:00

So that's a couple examples of the Lord just putting desires into your heart to help guide me on the path that he wants me to be on, and a path that is actually very beneficial for me. Like I've said many times, the Lord knows much better the path your life should take than you do. If you let him guide you, there are so many different ways that you can receive revelation and know that he's talking to you. There's scripture that talks about that. Your bosom will burn within you if something is right and true and at the same time, you'll have a stupor of thought if something is not. Now, what does that really mean? Well, something will just feel right.

Speaker 1: 12:53

Or if you keep trying something or have an idea to do something and you keep kind of being forgetful about it or just procrastinating, maybe, maybe the answer is that you shouldn't be moving in that direction. The answer is that you shouldn't be moving in that direction. That is why it's so important for you to learn the way that the Lord speaks to you, because everybody receives information differently and at different times. He will talk to you in different ways. I've heard everything from for me. I've heard, had everything from feeling that feeling. I've had my intuition peaked. I've heard voices talking to me. It sounded like my own voice, but provided me information that I needed. I've had the gut feeling, warmth in my heart. There's so many different ways and often you won't know for sure until after the fact, and that's why what President Uchtdorf said is so important about acting on and making decisions even when you don't have a full confirmation, because sometimes the confirmation doesn't come until you've already started down the path, and you'll either get a confirmation or you'll get that stupor of thought and need to change direction.

Speaker 1: 14:47

It's after midnight and I'm tired, so I'm going to finish this up, but I just wanted to talk to you a little bit about that and say that you can strengthen your personal testimony, strengthen your spiritual life, build the life that you want spiritually, If you work especially hard on learning how to know what the Spirit is trying to tell you. And it takes effort, it isn't easy, because you actually have to be striving and listening, pondering, deciding and acting Things that a lot of us don't necessarily like to do. But I tell you what life is better when you act on the promptings that the Lord gives you. The more you act, the more often that you respond and act on the promptings that you're given, the more personal revelation that you will receive. It's a promise that the Lord has given you, and I leave this with you and let you know that you are loved. You can do this and you can build that relationship with your Heavenly Father and, as always, I'm telling you do this and have a blessed day, thank you.