Your Heavenly Father Wants to Speak to You
Have faith that your Heavenly Father is speaking to you. He is there and loves you more than words can say.
We are sons and daughters of God, sharing the earth together far from our heavenly home. This is mortality, a time to receive our body, choose good over evil, grow our faith in our Savior Jesus Christ and His sacred Atonement, and embrace our Father’s plan of happiness.
Without a memory of our premortal life, we, at times, feel lonely for the world we left behind. Our Father has given us a spiritual gift to remain connected to Him and to receive guidance, direction, and comfort from Him. We know this gift very well; it is called prayer.
For Those Who Will Believe in Me, by Dan Wilson
Pray to Your Heavenly Father
An angel instructed Adam and Eve and all who would follow them to “repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore” (Moses 5:8).
Jesus taught:
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“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7).
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“When thou prayest, … pray to thy Father … in secret” (Matthew 6:6).
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“After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9).
Jesus prayed continually to His Father (see Luke 6:12; Mark 6:46). At Gethsemane, He told His disciples, “Sit ye here, while I shall pray” (Mark 14:32). While on the cross, Jesus prayed for the soldiers who crucified Him: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
We are counseled to “pray always.” As we “counsel with the Lord in all [our] doings, … he will direct [us] for good” (Alma 37:37). In addition, we “render all the thanks and praise which [our] whole soul has power to possess” (Mosiah 2:20).
But even more glorious, our Father in Heaven responds to our prayers! A thoughtful question for us is how do we better receive and understand the answers, direction, and comfort coming from our Father?
Receiving answers to our prayers begins with faith in Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. We trust in our Father, do our very best to keep the commandments, and look for His hand in all things (see Doctrine and Covenants 59:21).
Your Heavenly Father will stand by you, strengthen your abilities, comfort you, and “consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain” (2 Nephi 2:2) as you call upon Him.
Hear His Voice
As we exercise faith in God and keep His commandments, we naturally learn to better hear His voice.
In 1993, President James E. Faust (1920–2007), then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, invited my wife, Kathy, and me to attend a devotional at Brigham Young University with him. This devotional occurred well before the widespread availability of smartphones, social media, and the internet.
In his talk, President Faust warned: “In your generation you will be barraged by multitudes of voices telling you how to live, how to gratify your passions, how to have it all.” But “the voice you must learn to heed is the voice of the Spirit.” To do so, “we … must open our ears, turn the eye of faith to the source of the voice, and look steadfastly towards heaven.”
Years later, President Russell M. Nelson taught, “If you are paying more attention to feeds from social media than you are to the whisperings of the Spirit, then you are putting yourself at spiritual risk.”
The voice of the Spirit comes both to our intellect and our feelings. “I will tell you in your mind and in your heart, by the Holy Ghost, which shall come upon you and which shall dwell in your heart” (Doctrine and Covenants 8:2). Listen to your conscience—revelation often begins there.
Pray with a Believing Heart
Answers and impressions from God cannot be forced. We pray and wait with a believing heart. Some answers will not come in this life, but to the righteous, the Lord will always send His peace (see John 14:27). At times, answers come “line upon line, precept upon precept” (Doctrine and Covenants 98:12).
The voice of heaven can come unexpectedly often in quiet spaces and sacred places. In the stillness of my early morning prayers and ponderings, I find unusual blessings. A daily, personal, uninterrupted reading of the scriptures, while routine at times, can bring the voice of the Spirit into our hearts like fire at other times.
As the noise and distractions of the world swirl around us, the Lord has directed His prophet to build more and more temples. In these sacred houses of the Lord, as we leave our challenges outside and enter with our prayers and concerns, we are taught the truths of eternity. A year ago, President Nelson promised that as we worship in the temple, “Nothing will open the heavens more. Nothing!”
Each general conference also brings additional abundant blessings. In the coming month of April, we will meet once again in general conference to hear the voice of the Lord. I promise that as you prepare and come prayerfully to general conference, you will find answers to your concerns and know that “heaven’s hand” is upon you.
Have faith that your Heavenly Father is speaking to you. He is! Let your faith in Him and His Beloved Son help you part the veil and receive your Father’s voice. I testify He is there and loves you more than words can say.