Continuing from How to Get and Keep the Spirit, D. Kelly Ogden wrote:
Fire is a symbol of the Holy Ghost, and of his effect on a person. How can you get the fire in your bones? How can you get the Spirit of God or the Holy Ghost inside you to make mighty changes in your life? Here is the scriptural plan, step by step, to receive such a blessing.
- Desire it. “Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:6). When you come before the throne of God hungering and thirsting (importuning!) after things of God, you will get them. Do you really want more spirituality? You will seek it and find it. One of my valiant assistants in the mission wrote me a note one day: “President, I have never felt so close to the Spirit as I have this last week or so. I love it. I remember asking you how you knew when the Spirit was telling you what to do, or how you could always have the guidance of the Spirit. Now I know what was missing: I never really wanted it. You’ve got to want it—bad! And I never want to lose it!”
- Be obedient; keep the commandments. An Elder sent me an observation and a question: “I try to stay worthy of the Holy Ghost and then trust that what I plan to say or do is inspired. It’s tough to discern between my own thoughts and the Spirit’s guidance. How can you discern between your own desires and thoughts and those that the Holy Ghost puts in your heart and mind?” I thought about that for a while, because I faced that very same issue each time I sat down before the picture-board to start making changes in missionary assignments. I needed immediate guidance by the Spirit and instantaneous revelation. I believe, ultimately, the answer is simple: when you are living right and truly seeking the Lord’s guidance, your own thoughts become what the Spirit puts there. I like the stories of Daniel in the Old Testament. Some years ago, I was assigned to write the gospel doctrine lesson for the Church on the book of Daniel. It finally came to me that the real lesson from the life of Daniel wasn’t the miraculous events surrounding him and his friends (the fiery furnace, the lions’ den and so forth), but the commitment to daily diligence, just keeping up the same righteous habits that they had pursued for years. When faced with the decree not to kneel and pray to any god besides a huge idol set up by the king, or else get thrown into a den of lions, Daniel went right ahead and continued the same daily habit he had observed for eighty years. He knelt down and prayed to the true God of heaven. It is not the “lightning and thunder” events, the miraculous and memorable moments that ultimately make a difference in our spiritual life, but it’s the struggle for daily diligence, being firm and steadfast on a daily basis, with all the little things.~D. Kelly Ogden, Before You Get to Heaven (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2004), 87-90 (continued)
