Quit worrying

Learn to Recognize the Impressions of the Spirit (PMG Ch. 4)

When asked the question, "How do I know if it's the Spirit or myself talking?" Elder Bednar has responded, "Quit worrying about it. Quit fussin', quit stewin', and quit worrying about it." That is a pretty welcome answer, except haven't I always heard that impressions of the Spirit are impressions that "inviteth and enticeth to do good continually"(Moroni 7:13)? Isn't that the way to tell where the impression is coming from?

After answering that question the way he did, Elder Bednar continued to tell a story. I think this story was in a 2009 issue of The Liahona. When he was a 19 year old missionary he was sent to pick up Elder Boyd K. Packer from the airport and take him to a train station. Elder Packer was with his wife. They both got on the train and (I found the story) this is how Elder Packer tells what happened:

As the train was pulling out, one young elder said, “Do you have any German money?”I shook my head no.He said, “You better have some,” and, running alongside, pulled from his pocket a 20-mark note. He handed that to me.At that time the Iron Curtain was very “iron.” The train stopped at Hof on the border between West Germany and East Germany, and the crews were changed. All of the West German crew members got off the train, and the East German crew got on the train. Then the train set out across East Germany toward Berlin.The U.S. government had just begun to issue five-year passports. I had a new passport, a five-year passport. Before our trip, we went to have my wife’s passport renewed, but they sent it back saying that the three-year passports were honored as a five-year passport. She still had more than two years left on her passport.At about two o’clock in the morning, a conductor, a military-type soldier, came and asked for our tickets, and then, noting that we were not German, he asked for our passports. I do not like to give up my passport, especially in unfriendly places. But he took them. I almost never dislike anybody, but I made an exception for him! He was a surly, burly, ugly man.We spoke no German. In the train compartment, there were six of us: my wife and a German sitting to the side of her and then almost knee to knee in a bench facing us were three other Germans. We had all been conversing a little. When the conductor came in, all was silent.A conversation took place, and I knew what he was saying. He was denying my wife’s passport. He went away and came back two or three times.Finally, not knowing what to do, I had a bit of inspiration and produced that 20-mark note. He looked at it, took the note, and handed us our passports.

The conductor was about to throw Sister Packer off the train somewhere in East Germany in the middle of the night. The missionary who gave Elder Packer the 20 mark note was Elder Bednar. Elder Bednar said he had given it to them in case they were hungry, but Elder Packer says it turned out to have saved their lives that night.

In our culture in the church we often think that we need to receive instruction from the Spirit, recognize it as an important prompting, act on it, and then we'll be okay. I thought that for most of my life, until I heard this story about Elder Bednar and SO many of my own experiences suddenly made sense! The Holy Ghost isn't an Ask.com where we go every time we need an answer, he is a being that testifies of truth and then changes us so that we can learn to act according to God's plan.

Mosiah 5:2 And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.

 Now we understand that when Moroni says "every thing which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God," he means every thing, not just every big impression we get from the Spirit. Any thought we have to do good, or any righteous action we take while being good people and obeying the commandments, comes from God. Occasionally the big, strong impressions come and guide us, but more often they are thoughts and inclinations we have to do something good, and we don't even notice. Sometimes it even feels like we have no answers and need to take a big step of faith on our own. We need to just act. It is part of the mighty change wrought in us by the Spirit. Later on we can look back and see where the Lord's hand was in our lives making things happen; where we were guided to do good. For me that usually comes after, not before, I choose to act.

Now I see why so many times I haven't felt like I've received any answers, but then after making a decision and looking back on it, I can see that God's hand was in it. The Holy Ghost works with the willing every step of the way, even if you sometimes don't notice it's happening.


http://www.lds.org/liahona/2009/06/the-20-mark-note?lang=eng