When you want to receive

If you would like to get more out of your study of the scriptures I strongly suggest keeping a study journal. If you would like to get more out of your church meetings and General Conference I strongly suggest keeping a study journal. If you would like to get more out of your personal prayers, if you would like to receive more personal revelation, if you would like to see the Hand of God in your life….keep a study journal!

I can’t remember exactly when I first started keeping a study journal, but I’ve been doing it for at least 10 years. I have notebooks full of notes from Institute and attending church at the student ward. I haven’t always been stalwart with it, I definitely took a long break from it when I started having kids, but I have always come back to it and I have always had a strong testimony of it.

If you show the Lord that you are willing to receive what He has for you, He will give you more. As you read or listen with the intent to learn and write down what you hear, I promise you that you will receive more than if you passively read or listen. As you write down what speaks to your heart you will be given the opportunity to ponder for a second on what you’ve heard, and you will have the opportunity to receive more.

Keeping a study journal will also give you a greater chance to liken the scriptures unto yourself. As you come across a principle that you know you need to work on you can write about how you can better keep that principle, or how it applies to you, and receive ideas and promptings from the Spirit for you personally that pertains to that principle.

Writing down what the Spirit reveals to you is also a great way to be able to look back and remember what the Lord has taught you and will show you how the Lord works in your life. It will be impossible for you to deny that you are receiving revelation and that the Lord is there for you when you can see it all laid out over a span of time.

Along with keeping a study journal, keep a heart journal. Write down the promptings and ideas you receive as you pray. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve read back to what I’ve written in my heart journal and been surprised at what I have written and been glad that I had a way to be reminded of what things the Spirit prompted me to do.

It may seem like a silly or simple thing, but there are times when I think that I’m just going to read and if I “hear” anything then I’ll pull my notebook out and I don’t get as much out of my study time as I would have liked to. So I finally decide to get out my notebook and pen and ready myself to receive and then I do. I do receive because I’m ready for it. This morning I read “Choices” by President Monson from the April 2016 General Conference. It is one page long in the Ensign, and I have three pages of notes from it. I have five pages of notes from the Conference talk that I read yesterday.

I know that when you show the Lord that you are willing to receive, that He will teach you more than you could even imagine. He wants to teach you, He wants you to learn all that you need to make it back to Him, to become the person that He knows you can become. I know that as you study and listen with true intent, and are prepared to receive, that you will receive many wonderous things, that you will start to recognize the whisperings of the Spirit more in your life and that you will develop a deeper and stronger relationship with your Heavenly Father.