Area Leadership Message
Personal Revelation: A Witness from God, Our Father
Prophets are not the only people who can receive revelation. According to your faithfulness, you can receive revelation to help you with your specific needs, responsibilities, and questions and to help you strengthen your testimony.1
Looking back over 40 years at my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am amazed and very grateful for the positive, lifechanging experiences that personal revelation from my loving Heavenly Father has had, and is still having, in my life.
I recall clearly my first profound experience of personal revelation. I was 17 years old. It happened in my parents’ home in Suva, Fiji. I was in my bedroom alone, reading from the Book of Mormon with a determined desire to know for myself if the book was true. This was the challenge that full-time missionaries Elder Rian Nelson and Elder Randy Price had given me after their lesson on the Prophet Joseph Smith and how he had received gold plates from an angel, and then translated the text into English.
Those missionaries read passages from the Book of Mormon during our discussion and they shared strong and enlightening testimonies. I was touched deeply, and I wanted to know for myself if what they had shared was truly of God . . . and I wanted to say what they said with the same conviction and confidence.
I read 3 Nephi chapter 11. Almost immediately I began to understand and become enlightened. I visualized the Savior, Jesus Christ, descending out of heaven and standing amidst the multitude with outstretched hands, inviting them to come unto Him, to feel the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet. This they did one by one, and afterwards, they fell to the earth and worshipped Him as the promised Messiah2.
Feelings of warmth, comfort and peace overcame my whole person and I cried tears of love, gratitude, and appreciation for the Lord and for His mission of love and mercy. Instantly I recognized this was a spiritual witness from heaven . . . that what I was reading and feeling was true and of God.
The wonderful feelings I had experienced with the missionaries the day before returned, but this time I was alone. The influence of the Holy Ghost was personal and powerful. I did not want this precious moment to end. I knew then what personal revelation was. Whenever I have shared that experience over the past 40 years, that sweet reassuring witness of the Holy Ghost fills my heart.
Another experience I’ve had of receiving personal revelation was when I served as a stake patriarch. I was amazed and so humbled to receive revelation from the Holy Ghost each time I laid my hands upon the heads of those members who came to receive their patriarchal blessing. On every occasion, the clear inspiration I received was profoundly instilled in my mind and I was able to bestow upon each person the blessings that God, their Father, wanted them to receive. My task was to listen carefully . . . and to verbalize that which I had received.
While these two experiences are different, the common factor is that I needed revelation from God to teach, guide and comfort me; and I had faith that He would bless me accordingly.
Our living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, taught us the principle of revelation in the April 2020 general conference. He said:
“The Prophet Joseph Smith set a pattern for us to follow in resolving our questions. Drawn to the promise of James that if we lack wisdom we may ask of God, the boy Joseph took his question directly to Heavenly Father. He sought personal revelation, and his seeking opened this last dispensation.
“In like manner, what will your seeking open for you? What wisdom do you lack? What do you feel an urgent need to know or understand? Follow the example of the Prophet Joseph. Find a quiet place where you can regularly go. Humble yourself before God. Pour out your heart to your Heavenly Father. Turn to Him for answers and for comfort.
“Pray in the name of Jesus Christ about your concerns, your fears, your weaknesses—yes, the very longings of your heart. And then listen! Write the thoughts that come to your mind. Record your feelings and follow through with actions that you are prompted to take. As you repeat this process day after day, month after month, year after year, you will ‘grow into the principle of revelation.’”3