I have a friend the recently saw angels in the temple. I’m happy for her. But the fact is I’m not particularly envious. Seeing angels isn’t really high on my list of desired spiritual gifts. As a result I suspect I am highly unlikely to see any until I start really wanting to and asking to. (more…)

Recently someone asked me what I thought this verse meant:

And it came to pass that so great was their faith and their patience that the voice of the Lord came unto them again, saying: Be of good comfort, for on the morrow I will deliver you out of bondage. (Alma 24:16).

I’ll tell you all what my answer was and you can tell me if you agree or not. (more…)

What is Mormonism giving us that we cannot get elsewhere? There are lots of wonderful benefits to being Mormon but very few of those benefits are unique to our religion. Consider this list of non-unique benefits: (more…)

Ok, so after I called the world out on the subject of personal revelation, Crystal called me out on details. She wisely noted:

For someone like me, who has almost an inability to pray, do you have any suggestions for where to start? It’s good to say that we all should be having this, but the hows are helpful to those of us who struggle.

That is a good point. It is one thing to tell everyone to start listening to what God has to say but another thing to explain how to do that. I’ll try my best in this post. But I recognize that there is a high likelihood that you know more about this subject than I do so please correct or amend or add to my attempt here. (more…)

I am finally finishing Terryl Givens’ excellent book titled By the Hand of Mormon. In the penultimate chapter Givens focuses on the concept of dialogic prayer – personal two-way communication with God. He postulates that the reality of dialogic prayer as displayed over and over among the regular people in the Book of Mormon may be the real revolutionary doctrinal contribution of the Book of Mormon to the world. I think he is right. The prophets of the Book of Mormon seem to consistently expect us to talk to God and hear what he has to say back. In not-so-subtle ways they tell us that if we are not hearing back from God we are among the wicked. Think about what Nephi says to Laman and Lemuel when they have trouble understanding the vision their father had: “Have ye inquired of the Lord?” Laman and Lemuel gave the all too modern answer: “The Lord maketh not such things known unto us.” (1 Nep. 15:8-9) Nephi paints a world where the norm is to have a question, to inquire of the Lord, and to get a clear and specific answer. In his world the normal and righteous citizens consistently describe how “the spirit said unto me” or “the voice of the Lord came unto me”. I believe the Book of Mormon gives us that message because that is the view of the world those prophets and God expect us to keep as the saints in the last days. (more…)

There have been a couple of interesting discussions going on recently about what we can know or not spiritually and the hypothetical possibility we could be deceived about our faith. I like this topic. And since today is my birthday, I think we should talk about it. (You must obey the birthday boy after all). (more…)

We covered lesson 15 in Gospel doctrine yesterday. Once again my friend and neighbor Bruce did an excellent job. (I’m trying to butter him up to get him to start posting here.) The most important nugget I got from his lesson is that the injunction Moroni gives us to “deny not the gifts of God” is not so much him imploring us to avoid denying their existence as it is a plea for us not to decline the gifts God wants to give us. If this reading is correct (and I think it is), then the saying might be more appropriately read “decline not the gifts of God”. (more…)

Steve put up a great post today over at Kulturblog on developing tastes for the finer things in life — food, music, art, etc. It is an interesting subject in itself and in the comments Clark linked to another very interesting blog with a cool listening experiment. Go try it yourself.

As hard as I found it to believe, apparently a lot of people can’t tell which version of the music is askew. It was painfully obvious to me, but then again I have a degree in music and have played semi-professionally, etc. So let me know if it is obvious to you or not. If it is not, don’t fret — apparently you are in the majority. According to the study cited, most people don’t currently have the ability to discern any difference. But if it is not this might serve as an interesting object lesson on the spiritual subject of discernment. (more…)

In Sunday school this week I used the term “twisting God’s arm” as a way of describing the process of petitioning the Lord with enough fervency and faith (and sometimes through enough people) to get a mighty miracle. It was a tongue-in-cheek reference and I qualified this term by mentioning God wants his arm twisted in this way by his children. But I have decided that twisting his arm is not the proper analogy for this process. (more…)

Have you ever seen an angel? I haven’t. In fact I’ve never met anyone who has claimed to have seen one. Yet I have met thousands of priesthood holders who hold “the keys of the ministering of angels.” Now I’ve read the statements by Wilford Woodruff and others that explain why God will only send us angels if the job at hand can be accomplished in no other way. But it has always seemed odd to me that there is so much emphasis on the restoration of the keys of the ministering of angels if we never get to use those keys. Well I have learned something new recently that has helped me better understand and now you get to learn it too… (more…)

Have you ever had a revelatory dream? I have. In fact I had one last week. I won’t go into detail about it because it just doesn’t feel right yet… but maybe someday. It was the first one I have had in several years. The last one I remember was in 1999. The prophesies in that one came to pass just as the dream indicated. I had a few on my mission too. My current stake president recently had one that has been appropriately quoted as local scripture in many meetings since he shared it with us at stake conference. (more…)