Recognizing the Spirit

I am color blind, and so the first reaction I get from people when I tell them this is for them to look for something, and then ask me what color it is. When I get it right, their next question is normally, what type of colorblindness, so I say red/green colorblind, so they look for something that is either red or green around and once again ask me what color it is. This goes on for four or five items then finally they say, your not colorblind. Another typical question I get is, How does green (or red) look to you? I then have to explain to them, that I cannot explain how it looks to me. Try it yourself, How does green look to you? Describe the color green. You cannot come up with a description besides green, just as I can normally recognize green, you too can recognize green, but yet you cannot describe how it looks to someone else. You are focused to give examples of things that are green.

Similarly, The way we recognize the Holy Ghost (also called the Spirit) works much the same way. It is hard to explain just how the Spirit feels, but yet you know when the Spirit is present.

For me I have felt the Spirit many different ways. When it is teaching me something about the gospel, it is as if something just clicks and I have a "Eureka!" moment; my mind seems to suddenly become clear and things just make sense. I love these moements as I study from the scriptures.

Other times I am filled with what Paul describes as the fruits of the Spirit "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law." (Galatians 5:22-23) It is often at times in which I am going through a struggle in which the spirit comes to me and fills me with peace and Comfort. These feelings are ways in which we can know the spirit is present in our lives.

At times I have had the Spirit come as a voice; that is the reason why I started this blog. As a missionary, I have a mission president who leads and helps me along with other missionaries, and he taught us to pay close attention to the thoughts that come to us as we study from the scriptures. Once, as I was studying, the thought came to my mind that I should start a blog, I never thought myself a writer, so a blog was intimidating, but I decided that I would. Another experience that is dear to me is that of my Grandfather. When he was thinking about joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the time came he felt when either he had to be baptized or stop meeting with the missionaries. At length he decided he was going to tell the missionaries he was going to stop meeting with them. As he was at his office, he heard a voice say "take another look." Startled by the voice, he asked his secretary if she heard the voice, and was surprised to hear that she did not. A little later the voice came again with the same message; he knew at that time it was the Spirit speaking to him to take another look at the church. He along with his wife and kids were baptized.

The Spirit comes in many ways and may not come the same way to different people, but as we learn the ways it can come, we will come to recognize the spirit in our lives. Just as a color cannot be described but is easily seen, we need to ultimately experience the spirit to come to know how it speaks to us. We then must follow the Spirit's guidance in our lives to receive more guidance and to become more sensitive to the Spirit.