How we invite and receive the Holy Ghost
How we invite the Holy Ghost is found in the choices we make and how we live our lives. Doing the things that we know Heavenly Father wants us to do invite the Holy Ghost. Whether this is personal prayer, scripture study, service to others, attending the temple regularly, preparing for and partaking of the sacrament weekly, or living and keeping the covenants that we have made. Any and all bring us closer to our Heavenly Parents and as such bring the Holy Ghost closer to us.
To initially receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, you must be baptized as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. After you are baptized, priesthood holders will lay their hands upon your head and say unto you receive the Holy Ghost. This is often followed by a blessing. This is done as it was done in Acts 8:17 by Peter.
This is the basic process that must be followed. However, this does not simply mean we now have the Holy Ghost. The priesthood holders who bless us did not merely give us the Holy Ghost, that is not what they said. They told us to receive it.
When I looked up the definition of the word receive, I found the following(merriam webster):
Acquire: to come into possession of,
receive a gift
This is the one we most commonly think of when we talk of receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. It is simply accepting when someone gives you a gift. When the priesthood lay their hands on our head we accept the gift of the Holy Ghost.
to act as a receptacle or container for
the cistern receives water from the roof
To me, this says that we not only accept the gift of the Holy Ghost, but we allow it to fill us. We feel it, listen to it, and follow it. Oftentimes for me when I feel the Holy Ghost, it is a simple peaceful feeling. Other times it can be a flood of revelation or direction. However it works for you, I have found it often entails emotion. Many of the descriptions of the Holy Ghost contain how we feel it. We feel peace, enlightenment, and comfort. In Moroni 7:32 it says, “that the Holy Ghost may have place in our hearts.”
to assimilate through the mind or senses
receive new ideas
A way that I often receive inspiration or prompting from the Holy Ghost is through thoughts, ideas, or simply a person’s name popping into my head. Do we receive them? Do we act on them? Acting is part of receiving. Do we act or do we merely let that thought go and go about our day? Acting on the thoughts and ideas is vital to receiving the Holy Ghost. Through action we indicate our willingness to take direction and to be tutored by the Spirit. Action also begets more revelation. This leads directly into the next one.
Admit: to permit to enter,
Do we allow the Holy Ghost to enter? Do we allow it to come into our thoughts, our hearts? Is there room for it or are our thoughts and hearts crowded with worry or fogged over with fear. In order to permit the Holy Ghost to enter we need to make room for it.
I struggle at times with anxiety and depression. When I am in the midst of a panic attack or sunk in a depression it is hard for me to feel the Holy Ghost. I must clear away the fear that causes my anxiety, and dismantle the frustrations that cause depression in order to Feel the Holy Ghost and permit it to enter my mind and heart.
Maybe you don’t struggle with anxiety or depression. Maybe you are just very busy, your day filled with work and errands and family. I understand that. When my kids were young, I homeschooled. Every day was busy. Sometimes it seemed I ran and kept running until it was time for bed.
I realized in order to have the Holy Ghost with me, I needed to take the time to have a quiet moment to myself. I woke up an hour before my kids got up to have my quiet time. It was short and often fleeting with four small children getting up to start the day, but it was enough to permit the Holy Ghost to come and be with me, to guide and direct me through the chaos of my day.
Whatever you need to do in order to permit the Holy Ghost to enter your mind and heart, I encourage you to take the time to do it. Find your quiet moment and allow the Holy Ghost to enter your life.
Welcome, Greet
to react to in a specified manner
In Greek receive translates to (Strong’s Greek Dictionary)
dexomai (“warmly receptive, welcoming”), which means to receive with “ready reception what is offered”
This definition made me stop, think and ultimately smile. Do we welcome the Holy Ghost? Do we warmly embrace its presence in our lives? Are we ready to receive whatever it has to give us, wherever we may be in our lives? Sometimes in my life I haven’t been ready to receive what it has given me, or I haven’t heeded it as it was an inconvenient time. I am not proud of those moments. I have learned a great deal, sometimes painfully when I have not listened or welcomed the Holy Ghost in my life.
I think in welcoming the Holy Ghost, it might help to see it as welcoming your best friend, who always listens, but always tells you straight out if you are making the wrong choice. I have friends like this. I love them dearly and value their friendship and counsel.
How would your life change if you welcomed the Holy Ghost with a smile and an open heart and mind? What would you learn if you made that the thing you made sure happened every day?
I believe you would see miracles in your life. Maybe not as you expected to see them but I do not doubt that miracles would occur. I know the times in my life that I have done this that miracles have happened. I encourage you to try this in your life.
Believe: to accept as authoritative, true, or accurate
In receiving the Holy Ghost, do we believe what it tells us? Do you believe it when it tells you need to do something that to you seems enormous and almost like you couldn’t do it? We are told that those the Lord calls He qualifies. This is often in regards to callings but it can apply to the individual things that we are called to do in our daily lives.
It took me a long time to believe that I could write and do a blog. I am still learning even now. It is a daily battle at times to listen to the Holy Ghost as Satan is trying to tear me down and tell me that I can’t really do this. It is important to believe the Holy Ghost, who he says you are, what he says you are capable of. Each of us has a great deal we can give to each other, and a greater journey in becoming more than we think we can be. Believe the Holy Ghost. Listen to it and it will drown out the voices that tell you that you can’t, or aren’t, or that you shouldn’t try.
Once we believe the Holy Ghost there is a great work that we allow to be done in becoming who we are meant to be and in making our lives into what our Heavenly Parents mean them to be. In believing we make our mortal journey more meaningful and filled with love, faith, joy, and purpose.
Bear: to support the weight or pressure of
We often talk of bearing our testimony. We also bear the Holy Ghost. We take it with us throughout the day. We listen to it (hopefully)as we go about the daily choices that we make. We use it when we bear testimony to others. Part of receiving the Holy Ghost is bearing it.
Sometimes bearing the Holy Ghost means bearing the weight of what it has asked you to do. Nephi was asked to build a ship. He bore the weight of the responsibility to do that. Without the ship he and his family could not travel to the promised land. Nephi did not know how to build a ship. I marvel that Nephi’s response to the Lord’s direction to build a ship was to ask where to find ore to make tools.
When I was directed by the Lord to build this blog, my first response wasn’t ‘what tools do I need and how do I create them’. I am ashamed to admit my first response was ‘you have got to be kidding’. My life was crazy with kids and helping care for my parents and I really didn’t see how I was capable of creating and managing a blog.
I eventually got there. My life is a bit simpler now and it is easier to find the time to not only write the things I publish but to learn how to be a better blog builder. Nephi bore the responsibility to create a way for his family to travel across the sea so they could go where the Lord needed them to be.
More to the point he bore the responsibility to follow the direction of the Lord for our lives that is given by the Holy Ghost. I bear the same responsibility with what I have been asked to do. I have my own personal boat to build. We each do. In whatever we have been asked to do by the Holy Ghost it is ours to bear.
to take a mark or impression from the weight of something
some clay receives clear impressions
As anyone who has worked with clay or simply played with play-doh with their kids, knows we leave impressions on the clay as we touch it, fold it, mold it, or shape it. In this instance, we are the clay. Do you allow the Holy Ghost to shape you, to mold or fold you? Do you allow it to leave impressions on your soul? In listening to it and following it, do you realize that you leave impressions on the souls of those you reach out to, touch, serve, and love?
We are on this mortal journey to grow, change, and ultimately become like our Heavenly Parents and Savior Jesus Christ. We must be as malleable as the clay so that we can be shaped, and formed by them through the Holy Ghost. In this way we can become like them. We need to allow them to change us , help us grow, indeed to be imprinted on our souls.
Conversely as we follow the Holy Ghost we will leave imprints on the souls of those that we serve, love, reach out to, and interact with throughout our lives.
I encourage you to receive the impressions the Holy Ghost gives you and allow it to imprint on your soul the things of eternity.
Acquire, Experience
received his early schooling at home
As we continue to receive the Holy Ghost throughout our lives we acquire greater sensitivity and skill in hearing it and following it. The more we experience the promptings and revelations given by the Holy Ghost, the more we follow them to the best of our ability, the more experience we gain and the more opportunity we are given to continue to do so.
Receiving the Holy Ghost is so much more than simply getting a gift when we are baptized. It is a lifelong pursuit to admit, welcome, believe, bear, change, and experience the Holy Ghost throughout our mortal journey.
