Seeking After & Receiving Personal Revelation

Revelation comes much easier to some than for others. If you already believe you are one of those people that can’t receive personal revelation, then this might not be easy.

A false sense of humility is your first obstacle to acquiring most gifts of the spirit. Getting revelation is an act of faith. You must learn how to both ask for and receive personal revelation. The process requires time, dedication, and much patience. If you don’t have a sufficient hope or belief that the Lord wants to talk to you personally then you will throw up your hands in exasperation every time the journey seems difficult rather than rejoicing in the next small piece of the veil you’ll uncover each time you try.

If you don’t think you can speak with the Lord or hear His voice, remember you already have, many times. Before this life, you created a plan together to find your way back to Him. The recollections of those experiences are buried somewhere deep in your spiritual memory acting as confirming reminders. He knows you well. He knows exactly the steps you’ll need to take. You just have to have the courage to try.

Let me remind you of something. If you are reading this, then chances are that the spiritual gift of revelation is one of your gifts. How else would you have been led here? If you were meant to be here, then somehow you followed His voice to get here. Your path here may seem to you to be just a collection of unrelated coincidences. But sometimes that’s exactly how He works. The Lord can use each and every one of your experiences to guide you back to Him. He is very good at what He does. It is absolutely amazing how involved He is in every little detail of your life. His great desire is to connect with you again and talk together like you used to. Please believe that. As Moroni says, let that belief, or hope, be an anchor to your soul. And let that anchor continually guide you to do the work necessary to come unto Him.

Revelation can come in many different ways including feelings, impressions, thoughts, dreams, visions, or even from heavenly visitors. The Lord is never limited in anything He does. Even so, this particular “how-to” will cover only one method He uses to speak to us which is hearing His words in your mind. It usually starts with hearing a single word, for example a “yes” or “no.” For me, the first thing I ever heard was the word “stay” which came when I was earnestly praying one day about whether or not my family should move. There is no point in starting out this process by asking overly complicated questions. Why? Because most likely you wouldn’t yet be able to receive those answers. It’s easier to start off with simple yes or no questions.

In time you will hear multi-word answers which soon become full sentences. If you keep pressing forward, you will hear several sentences or even paragraphs on your way to having back and forth conversations. One of the biggest breakthroughs is when the Lord first asks you a question. The first time this happened to me I was expressing my desire to receive the baptism of fire and Holy Ghost and the Lord asked me, “What would you do with it if you received it?” I had no idea He would do that until it happened.

Perhaps I’m making this sound easier than it is. The first time I actually heard a word as an answer to my prayer was a complete shock. I didn’t know how the Lord would talk to me. I think I just expected a good feeling or maybe a “peace of conscience” or something similar. But it was a word and I knew that I had heard that word. Even so, I immediately doubted it. I share my personal experience with you to give you hope that He can and will speak to you with words, but they might not sound like you thought they would. If you had tried to convince me before my own experience that the Lord would speak to me using words, I probably would have supposed that meant a booming voice from the sky that shook the ground beneath me. I’m not saying that can’t happen, but for me, it sounded like my own voice in my head. As it turns out, that’s how it starts with most people on this path. It sounds like the voice in your own head. But they aren’t your words. They are inspired by the Lord. He uses what you are already familiar with to speak to you. Yes, on a day-to-day basis, the words in your mind are usually just your own words from your own imagination. Sometimes those words can even be put there or manipulated by the adversary. Be that as it may, this is also how the Lord will speak with you. The sooner you accept that as a possibility, the sooner you will begin hearing Him in this way.

There is no getting around the fact that receiving revelation in the form of words takes much practice. If it works for you right away, that’s awesome! Truly I would be so happy to hear that. But for me, after the first word I ever heard, it took another month of much prayer before I heard another word. Literally I sat on the floor in my closet praying for hours every night hoping to get to the heavens by swimming through the muddy waters in my mind.  There was just so much garbage in my head distracting me from keeping things simple. What I should have done, and what I recommend to you, is to come up with your question before you begin praying. Decide what you would like to know and then figure out how to ask it very simply in the form of a yes or no question. And then figure out how to ask that question in five or ten different ways. For example, “Is the Book of Mormon true?” “Were the words in the Book of Mormon written by real prophets?” “Did Joseph Smith find the gold plates buried in the ground?” “Do you want me to read the Book of Mormon?” “Are the words in the Book of Mormon from the Savior?” “Were the prophets in the Book of Mormon true messengers?” etc. If you don’t hear the answer to your first question, ask it again. And then ask it in a different way. There’s no need to rush through all these different iterations of your same question immediately but sometimes the way you ask the question is really important. For reasons not always immediately known, the particular way you phrase it just might be the key to unlocking your answer.

Before we go on, we need to talk about faith. Faith is both asking and receiving any spiritual gift or blessing you desire from God. If you’ve built up enough faith you can ask for anything from Him and receive it. But how you ask and why you ask for these gifts is incredibly important. Indeed, the Lord teaches us in 3 Nephi 14:7 to “ask, and it shall be given us. Seek and we shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto us.” Then the Lord further reminds us in verses 9-11 “what man is there of you, who, if his son ask bread, will give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”

Asking with Real Intent

Asking is the important first step. But you must do so with real intent, not to “consume it on your lusts” (Mormon 9:28). In my experience, the two single greatest barriers to receiving clear revelation are being unbelieving and not being clear with yourself about your own intentions for asking. When I get a jumbled or confused answer or no answer at all, nine times out of ten it’s because I have the wrong intention and didn’t even bother figuring that out before I asked. You have to ask yourself why you are asking this question. Why are you asking if the Book of Mormon is true? Why do you want that answer? And you have to keep asking yourself again and again until you get to the heart of your real intention. This is incredibly hard to do the first time on your own. If you have an unworthy intention, your subconscious won’t want to admit to it. If I was sitting next to you, I could help you, if you’d let me. That conversation might look something like the following:

Do you see where I’m going with this? These types of questions, where you are drilling down on your true intent, can be really annoying, but they are absolutely crucial. You must have real intent, or pure intent in the questions you ask. I don’t know exactly what that real intent will look like for you; sometimes you have to experiment until you get it right.  Most likely it will be something that gives the glory to God and acknowledges that you are seeking His will and not your own. I did not hear my first answer about moving until I acknowledged that I wanted to know the answer so that I could follow God’s will for me. I pray for you in your journey to discover your real intent and to align your motives with the will of God. This is faith, to seek after the gifts that are His good will and pleasure to give you. His desire is to bless you with the answer to every question your heart can conceive of. You can ask absolutely anything. No question is off limits. But you must have real intent before you can receive clear answers.

Receiving the Answer

The second part of faith is receiving or knowing how to receive the gift you asked for. I have only learned how to receive revelation line upon line, here a little and there a little, and I always have the feeling there is so much more to learn. The most important thing I have learned about receiving revelation so far is that when the Lord speaks to you, He expects you to follow what He says. When you hear His word to you it becomes your personal scripture and you must treat it as such. When I heard that first word “stay” in regards to whether or not I should move, I was aware of what the consequences would be for that choice. But none of that mattered. I had agreed I would follow the Lord’s word no matter what, and that was most likely a big part of the reason He was able to speak to me in a way I could hear.

When you begin hearing your first words from the Lord it is difficult to contain your excitement, which is understandable. One of your first inclinations might be to tell other people about it. I would caution against doing this lest your real intention for seeking revelation gets tainted by the desire for praise or personal gain. Give your experience some time to season. Plant the seed and see if it grows. True revelation is wonderful. It is light, it is truth, and it expands your mind and fills you with righteous desire. It explains certain gospel doctrines that have never fully made sense.

Personal revelation teaches you of the possibilities that yet await you in this life and the next. In fact, by receiving personal revelation, the Lord can and will show you all of His mysteries. Now that is an exciting prospect! Absolutely you will want to shout the things you learn from the rooftops. But unfortunately, not everyone you know is yet capable of receiving the same revelations. What you share with them may in fact hurt them more than help them if they are not ready for it. So be wise. Be cautious in what you share. Seek the Lord’s guidance in what is, and is not appropriate to say. 

I am not a proponent of the idea that all personal revelations are too sacred to share. I believe part of the reason we get revelation is as a testimony to others that they can do the same. Testifying to others what the Lord has revealed to you can be a powerful witness that He does indeed talk to us. Obviously, demanding that others should believe you or live according to your personal revelation is a sure path down to hell. You must honor and respect the agency of others just as the Lord respects yours. In all things let the spirit guide.

You may feel really good about sharing a revelation with someone only to have them throw it back in your face and call you deceived. This experience is never fun. It always hurts. I’ve learned this the hard way again and again. Part of learning to receive revelation is understanding that the Lord can talk to all of us differently. What He has taught someone else may completely contradict something you have learned but you are both still right, just on different levels. It’s never good to impose strict boundaries on the revelatory process for yourself or anyone else. That’s called putting stakes in the ground. If someone thinks you’ve been deceived, so be it. Maybe they are right. Maybe you need to reconsider. But they could also be wrong, and their criticisms may be coming from a place of fear. Don’t let others shake your confidence in the answers you’ve received. Doing so would be trusting in the arm of flesh rather than relying on the Lord.

Another important part of receiving revelation is what I call keeping the revelation pure. Often times when we receive an answer to our prayers, we immediately begin projecting our own biases onto the revelation. For example, when I first heard the word “stay” I wondered how long was I supposed to stay? When I began dealing with the consequences of staying it became very easy to tell people, “oh, I think I will just be staying here for another few months.” It seems like I was following the revelation I received but did the Lord really intend for me to only stay for a few more months? I didn’t know. I hadn’t asked. “A few more months” was my own bias I mixed into the revelation to make it more palatable. That was a big mistake. When the Lord said “stay,” that was all that He said. He didn’t say why or for how long. When we start interpreting the revelations we’ve received according to our own preconceived notions we run the risk of extracting meaning from them that was never intended. This is one way we can end up going down strange paths. The more your faith grows and your ability to ask for and receive revelation is strengthened, the easier it is to keep your revelations pure. If you do not understand what you received, always ask for further clarification rather than guessing at the meaning and twisting the revelation into something completely different.

There are many other things the Lord can teach you about what you must do to receive revelation but the final one I wanted to remind you of is to always express your gratitude to Him. Obeying His word and telling Him we are grateful for it are probably the two best ways to receive the gift of revelation. Thank Him right away. Thank Him when you see what He has told you comes true. Thank Him for the daily miracles and all of the little coincidences and witnesses He points out to you. Thank Him for answering your most difficult questions. Thank Him for being willing to share His light and knowledge with you. Thank Him for how much He loves you. Thank Him for when you get it wrong and He corrects you. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Get down on your knees and thank Him as often as you can for reaching down to you to lift you up to where He is. Draw near unto Him and He will draw near unto you. We can never praise and thank Him enough and when you are doing it correctly the Spirit will give you the words to say to properly express your gratitude.

Preparation to Receive Personal Revelation

I used to always say my prayers at the same time and in the same place. Each night after watching TV so late that I barely had enough energy left to make it upstairs to bed, I would kneel down on the floor with my body half supported on the couch to say a prayer. I learned that if I waited to make it upstairs to pray at my bedside, I would most likely fall asleep. So I would pray there at the couch, with my mind saturated by every rotten influence I just filled it with from the television. Let’s just say those prayers didn’t have much power. I wouldn’t say they were all completely worthless, but I cringe to think how little regard I gave to our Heavenly Father. Thankfully I have repented.

Prayer is much different for me now. Most people I know who are good at receiving revelation put quite a bit of effort into preparing to connect with heaven which includes choosing a time and a place where they are most likely not going to be distracted. For me, I chose to do this in my closet early in the morning before the kids wake up, and late at night, after they go to bed. The schedule I’ve chosen for prayer doesn’t work very well unless I take a nap sometime in the afternoon, so somehow I find a way to make that happen whenever possible.  I also pray every day around mid-day, which is rarely convenient. But I’ve learned to stop wherever I am and pray whenever the prompting comes to do so, otherwise the moment will pass and I will have forgotten no matter how good my intentions were. I’ve prayed in my car while driving to work. I’ve prayed during boring meetings. I’ve prayed while standing in the store (mostly for patience to deal with the person in front of me) and I’ve even prayed while lying in bed in the middle of the night when I suddenly woke up for no good reason. 

Prayer has become an essential part of my life and I hope it can be for you as well. Once you begin hearing words, it gets easier because the motivation to keep going grows stronger. Those first prayers I offered with real intent, seeking for revelation, were such a mess, but they were spoken in earnestness. Sometimes I would go for hours and receive nothing, and my back would be aching from sitting on the hard floor for so long, so I got a pillow to sit on. Prayer does not require you to be in physical pain. Make yourself comfortable if possible. I used to sit, but recently I’ve noticed I stay more in tune to the spirit when I’m kneeling, so I try to do that as long as I can. All of these things the Lord already knows. He knows we won’t know what we are doing in the beginning and He doesn’t mind. He’s seen this all probably an infinite number of times. Like I said before, He is very good at what He does. He knows exactly how to save each of us. Just start praying and don’t stop until you feel the spirit. Give him something to work with. He will teach you what to do. Trust Him.

Potential Questions to Ask

Very early on in my revelatory experience, I felt inspired to pray for everyone I knew. One night, I prayed for everyone I could think of one-by-one, by name, and asked if there was anything I could do for them. It was a profound experience to say the least. I highly recommend giving this a try if you feel stuck on what to say or what to ask for. Expect to be filled with charity as you seek for the Lord’s blessings for those within your circle of influence.

Another really good question to ask is, “Heavenly Father, do you love me?” In my experience, this is not a question that He takes lightly. What would you say if your child asked you the same question, even if they have been acting naughtily all day? When your heart is broken and your spirit is contrite and you ask Father this question, He will answer you. He will tell you in your heart and in your mind that “yes, He loves you very much.” You are His child. He delights to talk to you. He will never do anything that is not out of love for you and for your benefit. 

After about a month of receiving answers regularly, I had the desire to understand which spiritual gifts I may have. One day I went through the scriptures and found all of the gifts I could locate and prepared to ask about them during that night’s prayer. Once I was feeling connected to heaven, I went down the list one by one and asked if that was a spiritual gift I had or not. Most of the answers were “no”. But I remember there was a “yes” on one of the gifts that I was really shocked to hear. I also wondered if there were any spiritual gifts I should be seeking for that I did not yet have and the answer came very clearly to seek after the gift of discernment. I had always thought I had the gift of discernment because I felt I could read people pretty well, but I was taught by the spirit that what I had been doing was based more on my natural intuition. True discernment requires seeking the Lord’s guidance. This was such a powerful insight and lesson for me. I’ve been seeking further light and understanding regarding discernment ever since that day. This spiritual gift is crucial for receiving revelation.

Perhaps the most powerful experience I had with revelation early on was the day I felt inspired to ask the Lord for a blessing. This was the exact same thing as asking for a blessing from your father or another representative of the Lord. I just felt like it was something He would say yes to and He did! What followed was a couple of paragraphs of straight dialogue from Him. I said nothing and I wrote every word of it down as it was coming to me. It was a very special experience. I’ve since heard others share with me that they’ve had the exact same thing happen to them and it was a turning point for them in being able to hear the word of the Lord in their own mind.

I must admit, I did not always have a clear understanding of who I was praying to in the beginning, whether it was Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ. It felt so natural to me to converse with the Lord that I tended to gravitate towards praying to Him. He was always so patient and kind and understood everything about me. But one day, He explained to me that I must pray directly to the Father instead of Him. I felt intimidated by that thought. I was so used to speaking with the Lord that I didn’t know how to address our Father in Heaven. But then the Lord did the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. He told me He would give me what to say to Father. First, He would say the words and then I would repeat what He said. It was the most tender, heartfelt, humbling prayer I had ever offered. The Lord never takes credit for Himself. He always testifies and gives glory to the Father. It was the Lord that taught me how to love praying to our Father in Heaven. I still pray and talk with the Lord from time to time, but I always ask Father for permission first.

Confirming Your Answers

When someone asks me for help with learning how to receive revelation, it is always a wonderful experience, even if it doesn’t work right away. I love helping someone start from the absolute beginning when all they can do is offer up a few heartfelt words. It is so amazing to watch others come unto Christ and figure out how to receive revelation for themselves. But when I try to approach people unsolicited about learning how to receive revelation, those conversations usually end up a complete disaster. I have no problem bearing my witness that we indeed can ask for and receive the word of God through the voice of His spirit, and sometimes I may even sound fairly convincing. But inevitably, even when a good friend or family member actually believes I have received revelation, they tell me they are not ready to take that step for themselves. 

Not ready? Not ready?!! How can you not be ready to speak with the source of all truth and ask Him anything you want to know? I hope you are not saying to yourself that you’re “not ready”. I wasn’t ready 20 years ago when the spirit first invited me to become more holy and I’ve always regretted declining that invitation. How many stupid mistakes could I have avoided in my life if I had just agreed to go for it, not knowing beforehand how it would all work out, but trusting in the omniscience of the Lord. I understand there is timing involved in these things but if you don’t feel ready, ask yourself why not? Are you afraid you will be told to do something you don’t want to do, or are you afraid of the work it will require? O,r maybe you don’t want to be held responsible for the new knowledge you could receive? If any of these describe your own thoughts, perhaps you should reconsider. There is no more time to waste. Our very survival in the coming days will depend on our ability to receive revelation. You can do this! Don’t be afraid.

Other than “I’m not ready” the only other legitimate answer I have heard of why someone doesn’t want to seek revelation is because they are afraid of being deceived.   I can understand that. There is much news these days about people who have committed atrocious acts with the excuse that they were following revelation. I have to take pause at this response when someone says it to me. It is a tragedy when people are afraid to seek for revelation for any reason, but it is true that people do get deceived. I have been deceived many times both by my own thoughts and desires, and by things the adversary has whispered in my ear. 

When you begin the process of receiving revelation you can count on the fact that you will also be deceived. This is perhaps the most gut-wrenching part of this whole process. When you travel down a path that you are so sure was from the Lord, only to find out you were deceived, it feels like the worst kind of betrayal. I’ve seen this stop people from continuing, and it always breaks my heart. The first time I recognized a major deception that I had trusted, I was ready to completely give up. That experience made me doubt everything. I doubted God. I doubted the revelations I had received. I doubted myself. Everything. But somehow, through the grace of our Lord, I kept going. I knew that some of those revelations had been real. I craved the continual connection with the voice. There was no way I could give that up. But I proceeded with much more caution.

Take heart. God has given us the ability to minimize deceptions if we choose to go down this path. He cannot always keep us from tainting revelation with our own thoughts and biases because He honors our agency. For that same reason, He also won’t stop us from accepting revelations from the adversary that appeal to our inflated egos. But He does give us a way to check in with Him and make sure we understand what we have received and confirm that it was indeed from Him, if we are willing to take the time. Get used to the idea of checking and double checking everything. 

This is the way confirming a revelation works for me:  I ask a question and hear the response. Then I say “Heavenly Father, I asked this question and received this response, was this from Thee?” If yes, “Do I understand it correctly?” If I get the answer confirmed, I write it down and proceed with greater confidence that I have indeed received the word of God. I cannot testify that this method is foolproof, but I will say I have not yet been deceived, that I know of, when taking these extra steps to protect myself. It is tedious. I’d way rather have a smooth-flowing conversation than check and recheck every answer the moment I receive it, but it is worth it. 

If you don’t choose to confirm your answers, that doesn’t mean that you won’t still receive true answers. But it’s a risk. Knowing exactly which answers are from God, which are from you, and which are from the adversary, takes much faith and discernment. Learning how to distinguish the differences in the voices we hear is such an important part of the journey.

Write It All Down

I read a book once by John Pontius where he detailed his own revelatory process. The thing that made the most profound impression on me was his suggestion to write down everything that you receive from the Lord. I’ve never been much of a record keeper but something about that recommendation rang true to me. As soon as I finished reading his book, I immediately set up a new computer file for myself where I could capture all my thoughts, questions, impressions, dreams, visions, spiritual experiences and most importantly the words I had heard. 

I find this record I have kept to be invaluable to me. It is my own personal scripture.  Because I worry about someone else gaining access, I make sure to password-protect everything. I can just see some family member 100 years from now digging up my revelation journal and thinking I must have been crazy. Maybe they would be right! The revelatory process is not always clean and clear. It is a constant work in process. You get better at it in time but only if you keep putting in the work, day after day, even when you seemingly are not making any progress. I’m convinced part of the motivation for keeping good records is so that you can look back and measure your progress. 

I always get a good laugh when I review some of my earlier attempts at cracking open the heavens. But I’m also constantly amazed because I can always see the hand of the Lord in what I’ve written. I can see how He has guided me and encouraged me to keep going. I see how He has tried to speak with me even when I didn’t give Him much of anything to work with. Through all my frailties, weakness, personal doubts, inconsistencies, and personal failings, He was there. When I thought the heavens had closed because I had failed to stay clean, He was there. 

I would love to promise you that if you write everything down, including the time, date, and location of your revelations, that it will be of great benefit to you later on. But I suppose I don’t know if that’s true for you. I only know that’s how I feel about it for myself. Let the spirit guide you in that pursuit.

If You Are Still Not Hearing Answers, What Can You Do?

The first few words will probably be the hardest. You’ll ask yourself, “was that really a word?” “Did I really hear something or was that just me?” Then you’ll start doubting yourself, “I didn’t hear anything, I knew I wouldn’t hear anything!” These sorts of thoughts will plague your mind every time you first start trying. If your thoughts are making you feel discouraged, you can be sure that you are receiving revelation, but from the opposite source than you had hoped. I know it doesn’t sound fair that you could go seeking the will of God through His voice and then have that process get hijacked by the adversary, but that is a stark reality. 

It’s unfortunate that the adversary’s voice may be the loudest in the beginning. Please remember, he has always been there whispering in your ear, but he disguises himself to make you think it’s your own thoughts. He whispers to you that he is not there, that there is no devil. But be assured, any time you are discouraged, or feel doubtful or depressed, or get frustrated about anything, chances are that old Satan is lurking around trying to escalate those feelings that lead to self-destruction. 

On the other hand, when you feel joy and peace, when your body feels as light as a feather and your heart is brimming with gratitude, when you are full of charity for others and have great hope for the future, these are the fruits of the spirit. This is what it feels like when the spirit is speaking to you, and I know that if you’ve felt that before you can see the clear contrast between those feelings and how the adversary makes you feel. Both good and evil spirits have been speaking messages to us our entire lives. As you continue on the path you will get better and better at recognizing them. You’ll also be able to better distinguish your own thoughts and recognize when your own desires are affecting what you are hearing in your mind. 

It is so easy to get distracted. It is easy to let our thoughts control us rather than controlling them. There are so many things constantly filling our minds.  Things that we must interpret and react to just to survive. But somehow, we must find the desire and the willpower to put all those cognitive machinations on hold, even for just a brief moment, and take the time to try to connect with Heavenly Father. Doing so brings the spirit into our lives and that spirit always feels wonderful! But there is more to it than just a good feeling. The spirit always carries with it a message. Part of learning to tune into that message starts by hearing words. Words are very powerful. Even a single word like “yes” or “no” can contain great meaning. Words are only one level of revelatory communication, but they are a very important level to obtain.

If you are still having trouble hearing words, may I suggest the following: If you’ve ever observed a young child learning to read, you’ll notice at some point they are able to convert from pronouncing their words out loud to being able to read to themselves.  I liken that process to being able to hear the words of revelation in your mind. We may expect to receive revelation through outward means because that’s how we’ve always learned the gospel, but it’s time to convert to being able to hear the word of God inwardly, straight from Him. 

Try this exercise:

• Ask yourself out loud, “what is 2+2” But only hear the answer “4” in your mind.
• Ask yourself out loud, “what is 4+4?” But only hear the answer “8” in your mind.
• Ask yourself out loud, “what is 10+10?” But only hear the answer “20” in your mind.
• Keep going with about 5-10 additional simple math questions.
• Then ask yourself out loud, “what is my favorite color?” and only hear the answer in your mind.
• Say to yourself out loud, “my name is…” and then hear your name in your mind.
• Ask each of the following questions out loud and then hear the “answers” in your mind:
• What is the capital of Utah? “Salt Lake City”
• How many eggs are in a dozen? “12”
• How old am I? “___”
• Am I married? “___”
• Am I happy to be alive? “___”
• Do I like being outdoors? “___”
• Do I like my job? “___”
• Do I like to spend time with friends? “___”
• Am I afraid of what’s happening in the world right now? “___”
• Do I believe in God? “___”
• Is Jesus Christ real? “Yes!”
• Heavenly Father, do you love me? “Yes!”

The point of the above exercise is to warm your brain up and get you out of any ruts you may have dug yourself into thinking this won’t work for you. But please don’t misunderstand. You can’t force revelation. If words aren’t coming you can’t make them come by any amount of mental exertion. If the only reason you haven’t heard any words yet is because you don’t know what it will sound like, or how it’s supposed to work, then hopefully this exercise will help you get through that. But if there is a different reason it’s not working, you may have to address that separately. Let the spirit guide in all things.

Feel free to reach out to me if you think it might help to have me talk you through this exercise. I’ve seen this exercise turn a light on for others and I believe it can help you even if nothing else seems to be working. I’m happy to do whatever I can to help you.

Fasting

I’ve found it extremely helpful before we approach God in prayer to do something that shows we are willing to put His will above our own. One way we can do this is by kneeling before Him, which puts our own momentary physical comfort on the altar as a small outward sacrifice, symbolic of our inner commitment to seek Him. That doesn’t mean you have to kneel every time for hours and hours. It’s just something I’ve found recently that helps me connect. There are many other things we can do to show the Lord we are willing to sacrifice our own desires and replace them with His will. One of my favorites is fasting. Actually, I won’t call it my favorite, but I will call it effective. 

I’ve been fasting since I was eight years old, usually once a month for 24 hours with no food or drink, which resulted in varying levels of success. When I first began searching for personal revelation, I became obsessed with finding out who I was before this life and what I supposed to accomplish here. While I did hear some powerful insights about who I was, I wasn’t receiving anything about my personal mission. I think it was my deep desire to know what I had agreed to do before I came here that led me to consider the idea of fasting to help me get an answer. For what I considered the first true fast of my life, I decided to go for 48 hours with only water and no food. I checked with the Lord and He was okay with it.

I started my fast on Friday night. Saturday went pretty well, but Saturday night was rough. All day Sunday, all I could think about was eating. I was also extremely weak and tired. Looking back, I was such a wimp, but at the time, I thought I was going to die. Sunday afternoon, my family was going to go and visit some friends, so I had planned to stay home and pray while I was all alone. Even though the house was empty, I still prayed in my closet because it had become a holy place for me. I started out and asked the Lord if my fast had been acceptable and He said “yes.” I was prepared to ask about my life’s mission but before I got to that, the Lord spoke and told Me something He wanted me to do. At first, I couldn’t believe what I had heard. He had asked me to give up something that was very important to me, something that would be a major sacrifice. This was not what I expected at all and I asked again and again if what I had heard was correct.

Although I was not initially happy about the result of my first real fast, I can’t deny that the small sacrifice of fasting did indeed open the heavens for me. It allowed me to receive a revelation that I really needed but had probably been incapable of hearing until I was in a more humbled state. The power of fasting is real. I do not yet understand every detail of how this principle operates, but I do know that it works to help us connect to heaven.

Repentance

Almost immediately after receiving your first few revelations the Lord will begin showing you the personal idols, wicked traditions, and false beliefs that you hold as a higher priority in your life than Him and He will command you to cleanse yourself of these things. Please listen to Him. As you rid yourself of all unrighteousness, you will be removing the obstacles that you’ve let come between you and the Lord. Removing your personal idols, false beliefs, and unrighteous traditions is one of the best things you can do to improve your ability to receive revelation. 

You must obey the revelations you receive in order to come unto Christ and to repent of all your sins and be converted. If you receive a command through the voice of the spirit and refuse to follow that command, it will feel to you as if the heavens have closed. You can repent from this kind of rebellion, but the Lord may be slow to hear your cries for a while. Why would He answer your call if you are not going to listen? Asking for revelation and then not following it when you receive it will condemn you. He knows this and it is not something He wants to do unless that’s what it will take to wake you up. He pleads for you to come unto Him, but sometimes He waits to answer you until you’re ready. He knows the exact best path for you. He gives you no command that you cannot accomplish. He will be there to help you every step of the way.

I hope you can sense the seriousness of what I have said about repentance. Perhaps the real reason people tell me that they are “not ready” to seek for revelation is that they are afraid the Lord may ask them to give up something that they don’t want to give up. When I first started coming to the Lord, I was not ready to place everything on the altar either, but somehow the Lord was able to work with what little faith I did have. Step by step, little by little, grace to grace, and grace for grace I learned to trust Him. At first, when I received a hard command, I may have paused to consider it for a bit, but I never refused, or told Him no. I simply said, “Yes, I will follow Thee” and then trusted that the ability to accomplish His command would come as I moved forward. There is nothing He asks of us that is not for our benefit.

I know Jesus Christ through the commands He has given me. I love Him. I will do anything He asks. It doesn’t matter how hard it is. In fact, the harder it is the better because I now have a better understanding of what will be waiting for me on the other side of the struggle. I know how He asks, no matter how difficult it may seem at first, He always leaves me with a sense of hope that I can accomplish His command. It has not been easy. I have had to change everything about my life to come unto Him. But I can’t imagine any other way. There is no other way. He is the keeper of the gate and He employs no servant there. 

Understanding Your Revelations

In 3 Nephi 11:3-7 we read the account of the people gathered around the temple at Bountiful who hear a voice from Heaven. At first, they hear the voice and it “did pierce them that did hear to the center… and did cause their hearts to burn” and yet, they did not understand what was said. How can you hear a voice, feel the burning, and not understand the message? “And it came to pass that again they heard the voice (a second time), and they understood it not.” 

This is a very curious experience to comprehend. The words being spoken by Father were “Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.” That does not sound like a complicated message whatsoever, in fact it is beautiful in its simplicity, and yet the people who heard it could not understand it. 

On the third try, the people who heard the message spoken by the voice of Father finally understood it. Why? Because this time they actually opened their ears to hear it and their eyes were pointed to where the voice was coming from. “And they did look steadfastly towards heaven.”

What does it mean to “open your ears to hear”? It is possible and even highly likely that the voice of the spirit has been speaking to you your entire life using any means possible to deliver a message that you would understand. You may have felt it, you may have even heard it, but did you exercise faith enough to understand it? The spirit can’t force you to hear anything. It must be your choice.

Often times your revelations may be very confusing and you won’t be able to immediately interpret what you have received. Even if the words are simple, their true meaning may escape you. Once you understand their true meaning, it may all seem so simple and beautiful that you can’t imagine having not understood. But before those glorious epiphanies of light and truth shine upon you, you may be left feeling confused, frustrated, and unheard.

Think of a giant puzzle with many thousands of pieces that has no picture on the outside of the box for you to follow. If you pull any individual piece out of the box, chances are that single piece alone won’t help you figure out the bigger picture. You may not even be able to tell what is on that single piece. Fortunately, the gospel is not a pictureless puzzle. We have the scriptures to guide us. And we have teachers and true messengers that share with us their wisdom and experiences. As we confirm the messages we hear from the scriptures and from others of the Lord’s servants, we can begin fitting our own pieces together with those things we’ve already been taught by the light of Christ within each of us. As the bigger picture becomes clearer, the individual pieces we receive begin to make more sense. 

Some people play it really safe and only ask questions that will fit with pieces they already know and understand. I think that approach is very wise. Unfortunately, I don’t always follow that counsel. In the past, I have taken huge risks by asking questions that don’t in any way connect with things I already have a witness of. This is a surefire way to be deceived and I don’t recommend it. But I still do it which has led to receiving answers about things where I don’t even understand the questions. The point I’m trying to make is that I believe the Lord will answer my questions, no matter how crazy they may be. I believe that if I ask in faith, having real intent, and I expect to receive an answer that He will indeed give me an answer. I believe this with all of my heart and have evidence after evidence that this is true!

The revelations that I have received are only for me. I don’t mind sharing them but only to help you build your own faith and confidence in the Lord. I would never expect anyone to believe or follow anything I have received. But I hope my experiences are enough to inspire you to find your own answers and challenge yourself to ask questions on topics that may even make you feel uncomfortable or stretched beyond your current capabilities. The more you do this the easier it becomes.

Not too long ago I had a dream. I could see a million incomprehensible fragments of light that, as I panned further out, made up one single piece of a much larger puzzle. And as I panned out even further, I could see all the individual puzzle pieces that fit together to reveal one large incredibly detailed image of the Savior. That’s the picture on the outside of the box! That is who and what we are trying to understand. Look to Him as the source of all truth and He will speak to you. He will call you by your own name to repent and return to Him. Knowing that all true revelations are pointing you to Christ is the key to understanding most of their meanings. 

About seven months after receiving the answer to “stay” where I then lived, my wife and I received another revelation that we needed to move to a new location as quickly as possible. Had we not received and obeyed that original revelation, this new move would have been virtually impossible. I thought I understood the meaning when I received the original revelation, but obviously I had no idea. However, I am so grateful I both asked for and received the revelation to stay in my home at that time. It made a huge difference in my life for many things that would fall in place after that original revelation was followed. The Lord works in mysterious ways and His ways are not our ways. He always works with what we give Him to teach us as best He can. I am grateful to our Heavenly Father and to Jesus Christ that the heavens are not closed. All people everywhere can speak to them whenever they want. Please, if there is anything I can do to help you on your journey to receive revelation, let me know.

I realize this is way too much information to take in if this is the first thing you’ve ever read about receiving personal revelation. Most likely, none of this will make much sense if you’re just beginning, and that’s okay. I suppose the real goal of writing this is to encourage you to try. You have to put in the time. The spirit is the real teacher. Your learning process will come straight from the Lord and be completely unique to you. After a week or so of putting in a solid effort, more of the things I’ve written about will start to make sense, and you will probably be able to teach me things that I had no idea about. That’s after just one week. There is a special spirit about people who sincerely try and then get together and discuss the process with others. You can see the light in those sincerely trying to connect with heaven. Some people will say these things are too sacred to share and maybe that’s true. But I’ve found that many people who say such things aren’t really hearing much of anything for themselves. I don’t say that out of judgment as much as a hope that they can have their own experiences with receiving revelation someday. It really is a wondrous miracle.

Do the work. Seek Him and you shall find Him. He can show you all the mysteries of God. This is how He’s always done it.

Summary

1. Listen for the voice, it will invite you to come unto Jesus Christ.
2. Revelation is an act of faith. You must ask for and receive revelation.
3. Ask God for revelation with real intent, believing He will speak to you.
4. Receive personal revelation first in the form of simple words.
5. Follow whatever the Lord asks you.
6. Give thanks for all revelations from above.
7. Confirm your revelations. All of them. Every time.
8. Write everything down.
9. Try fasting if you haven’t yet heard any words.
10. Repent of your idols and come unto the Lord.

-Justin