#23 Creating Your Life with God, a system for recording and carrying out God's instructions for you.

It is one thing to receive revelation, it is another thing to implement it and let it change your life!  As I started learning how to hear God's word for me more frequently I found myself trying to organize, remember and carry out all I was learning. I started to journal differently but I still felt I needed something more. I took an empty cork board and created what I now call my personal revelation board.  In this episode I share all my tips and insights on how to make your journal personal scripture and create your own personal revelation board.

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Transcript

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Elder Richard G Scott said, Write down in a secure place the important things you learn from the Spirit. You will find that as you write down precious impressions, often more will come. Also, the knowledge you gain will be available throughout your life. Always, day or night, wherever you are, whatever you are doing, seek to recognize and respond to the direction of the Spirit. Express gratitude for the help received and obey it. This practice will reinforce your capacity to learn by the Spirit. It will permit the Lord to guide your life and to enrich the use of every other capacity latent in your being. Welcome to the Hope Smiling Brightly podcast. Sharing stories and ideas that will empower you to overcome doubt, cultivate the kind of faith miracles are made of, and experience the transformative grace of Christ. Whatever it is, Christ is the answer. I am your host, Amber, known as at Amberton Pierce on social media, hopefully, most especially known as someone who loves to share the light of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. You are listening to episode 23, Creating Your Life with God, a system for recording and carrying out God's instructions for you. I just want to give you a heads up that I'm going to be sharing a lot of visuals today. So while listening will be just fine. If you are more of a visual learner, you might want to watch this on YouTube or Apple video. I want to share an amazing experience I had with you. Recently, I went to a retreat, a retreat that I co-host with my friend. And honestly, I didn't know what to expect. And I wasn't sure if I would continue to participate in these retreats. But by the end of the weekend, I was blown away by what I witnessed. You know how your kids feel when they come back from FSY on this spiritual high, and they made so many good friends and they don't want to leave. This is how we all felt at this retreat. It was like FSY, but for women. And I didn't realize how much I needed it, how much these women needed it. It felt like living in a little slice of Zion for four days. And I especially loved witnessing the friendships and coming together and rejoicing in Christ. And of course, learning really powerful principles that we could all take home and improve our lives through Christ. So after that experience, I knew that this was something I wanted to continue participating in. And right now, you can go to sunshine in the soulretreats.com and see when our next retreat is. We will be holding them very consistently throughout the year. And I encourage you to get on our wait list. You'll see it on the website. Because if you get on the wait list, you will have first access to register for a retreat once it opens up for registration. We only accept about 15 to 20 women per retreat. So we fill up pretty quickly. But I cannot wait to see you at our next retreat. And of course, I will leave a link in the show notes. All right. I am so excited to jump into this topic. If you listened to the last episode, you know this is a continuation of my episode all about personal revelation, a little bonus episode for you where I want to share with you what God taught me on how to really change my life and create with God through personal revelation. So I'm I'm really excited to share these concepts with you. And again, I have to remind you at the beginning of every podcast episode: invite the spirit and don't listen to me so much. Listen to what the spirit lets you know is going to be great for you to implement into your life. So before we dig deep into this, I feel like I need to debunk one of Satan's lies when it comes to personal revelation and scripture study. So I had just taught these concepts at a conference when a woman came up to me and asked me, so what about normal people? And I was, I was kind of confused. I'm like, normal people, like I have my quirks, but I think I consider myself pretty normal. So I asked her what she meant. She's like, like, what about normal people who study the scriptures and want to receive revelation? People who aren't speaking at conferences and teaching seminary. And then I understood what she was talking about. But it kind of disappointed me. I realized she had this belief that the only reason to deeply study your scriptures, or the only reason you might need to receive all this revelation, is if you have some sort of what the world might consider a special role, that you need to be a seminary teacher or an institute teacher or have some sort of big calling. But it made me think of a story that President Oakes said when he described a time when someone asked him what it felt like to be a special witness of Jesus Christ. And he responded, I don't know, you tell me. Just as we don't have to be an apostle or a prophet to witness of Christ, you don't have to have some sort of special role to deeply study the scriptures and to receive personal revelation. I started studying this way years before I became a seminary teacher. In fact, it probably helped open the door and prepare me so that I wasn't scared out of my mind when I was called to be a seminary teacher. And even then, I only taught seminary for three years. And my seminary preparation was separate from this kind of study. And I continued to serve as a seminary supervisor after that, but I study this way because anyone, anyone, we've been told, can know the mysteries of God. But we have to put the effort in. Don't sell yourself short. Don't say that or believe that for some reason, because you're a normal person, I don't even know what that is, that you don't have access to this kind of revelation in knowledge. This is for everyone. And I will also add that if you have the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ in your life, you are not a normal person. We have a great responsibility before us because of the knowledge that we have. And we must be the Lord's servants in these last days to help gather Israel. And God will show you specifically how you are a part of that incredible task. As we seek to discover our role, journaling is going to be a part of it. So I want to talk about what inspired me to start journaling. When I was only 12 years old, the daughter of a family friend who had passed away came to live with us. And we became roommates. And I liked having her as a roommate. But there was one thing I did not enjoy. Every night, when I wanted the lights off so that I could go to bed, I had to leave the lights on for a little bit because my new foster sister wanted to write in her journal every night. And one night I was being a little snarky and I started to criticize her. I turned her and I was like, listen, why do you want to write in your journal? You know that this is so stupid. We just write stupid things that we won't want nobody to read. And you're probably gonna want to burn it anyway. Well, she didn't say anything at first, but she took her journal and opened the back cover of it. And she took out a small crumpled piece of paper, and she said to me, Do you see this paper? Which, if I remember it right, it was a shopping list. She said, This paper is the only thing that I own with my mother's handwriting on it. I wish I had more. I wish my mother had kept a journal. And this is why I write in a journal. I didn't respond to her, but I turned and opened up the drawer of my nightstand and pulled out a journal that I had just been given by my young woman's leader. I opened that up. I started writing in it, and I didn't stop. I did not miss one single day of writing in my journal for the next several years. In fact, it wasn't until I got to college that I started skipping days here and there. But since then, I was always an avid journaler. And yeah, a lot of it was stuff that I would never want anyone to read. But a lot of it were the things that God was putting in my heart. And I started to learn the value of recording the things that God speaks to you. I want to share this quote from you from uh Henry B. Iring. He said, Let me pass along a little advice the prophet Joseph Smith gave to the leaders of the church. He said, By neglecting to write these things when God had revealed them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth, the spirit may withdraw. And then President Irene said, I think that means that in your heart, at least, the attitude of writing down even the simplest things that may come from the spirit would invite the spirit back again. I have witnessed this and truly believe it. And I find it interesting that about a year before President Nelson became our prophet and gave his very first talk, where he pled with all of us to increase our capacity to receive personal revelation. I started having these promptings that I needed to stop writing in a paper journal and I needed to move to a digital journal. I can't tell you how resistant I was to this. I loved my paper journal. I had taken a pen in my hand and put it to paper my whole life. It became very therapeutic. I didn't want to change. And so it took me a while to listen. But finally, my very last entry in my paper journal was on January 1st, 2018. And the very next day, as my part of my New Year's resolution, I switched over with much resistance to a digital journal. But now I understand how vitally important it was for me to do that. Now I'm I'm not telling you that you can't write in a paper journal, but I'm just going to share with you why and how a digital journal helped increase my capacity to receive revelation and prepared me for what was coming. Because I had already found that I was starting to receive revelation that I was recording in my journal. And but every time I felt like I needed to go back to that revelation, it took me forever to find it. I wasn't sure what page it was on. And this is the first thing that I loved about having a digital journal. Because once you enter something, there is a search bar at the top of your journal. And you can just search a few words that you you knew that you wrote about, or let's say you put in a scripture, you could type in where you knew you had written about first Nephi. Um, and you can easily find the journal entry that you're looking for. Because as you receive more and more revelation, this revelation becomes like personal scripture to you. And you will be able to look back to past entries for further revelation. And I'm going to give you an example of that. But first of all, I want to share with you all the little tools that you can't use in a paper journal. Like, for instance, if you come across a verse of scripture, you can just copy it and paste it right into your journal. You don't have to write it out. You can add tags to your entries. I have tagged uh many of my entries as profound revelation, revelation that I know I need to go back to. Or I have another tag for when I have a dream that I feel that is important and I write the details of that dream. But any topic that you write about, you can assign it a tag so you can easily organize all your entries into topics, just like it is in our digital scriptures. I want you to think about how much our digital scriptures have changed the way we study, how much easier it is to find what we're looking for and to connect the dots in our scriptures. That's exactly what a digital journal will do for you. You could add links to your digital journal if you want to link back to a conference talk or whatever it may be. If you want to include something that you read in a book in your journal, you can scan those words with your camera and add the words right into your journal, or even add pictures into your journal. You can link different journal entries that correlate. You can even record yourself talking and it will transcribe right into your journal. I had never considered all these amazing tools that would make receiving and recording personal revelation all that easier. Like I said though, my favorite tool is the search tool. And I want to share an experience that I had with it to help you understand the power of having a digital journal. So I had done what I always do because of Wendy Watson Nelson's 30-day experiment that I talked about in the last podcast episode. I had asked a question. I was kind of feeling stuck. And I asked God, what would help me to get unstuck and move forward and what he had for me. And I randomly opened up to 1 Kings chapter 3, verse 5, where it says, The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night, and God said, Ask what I shall give thee. And as I read that verse, I knew God was telling me that He was extending an invitation, telling me, Ask for what you need, and I will give it to you. And this was a several day process, but I was pondering and pondering what is it that I was to ask God for? And I because I felt like He would show me what I was supposed to ask for, that would help me get unstuck and move forward in my journey. And as I was pondering, just Sister Eubank came into my mind. And I was like, well, that's interesting. I wonder if I've ever written or quoted Sister Eubank in my journal before. I couldn't remember. So I went to the search tool and I just entered in Sister Eubank. And one journal entry came up. And I was requoting one of her talks. And I scrolled to the bottom of the journal entry. And right there, I had written something that I completely forgot. I wrote, Heavenly Father, I ask for the gift of innovation and creation. Right there in a past journal entry, God led me to the very thing that I needed to be asking him for. So do you see just one cool example of what can happen when we utilize a digital journal? I know people are going to ask, uh I'm not a sponsor of any particular journaling app. I have always used the day one app and I love it. Um, they have a free version where you can just write in one journal. I, it's worth it to me to have the paid version. It costs just as much about as buying a journal. And uh the reason I like using the paid version is because I can have multiple journals. So I have a journal that's just for my personal revelation, I have a journal that's for recording life experiences, I have a journal for taking notes when I'm at church meetings. So there's just some ideas for you. But I highly encourage you, if you haven't already, to move over to a personal journal or a digital journal. Um, another reason why is because with the day one app, I can access my journal on my phone, on my iPad, on my computer, anywhere I am. It's at my fingertips so that I can record personal revelation wherever I am. So after President Nelson's talk and Wendy Watson Nelson's invitation and switching over to a digital journal, personal revelation really started to accelerate for me. But there was something I should have known would happen as I started learning more about who I was and who God was. Who entered the scene? None other than the adversary. He was not very happy about this. He does not want us to know who we are. And so at the same time as I'm receiving all these beautiful things, I had never felt so overwhelmed by negative and discouraging thoughts. It was so persistent and overwhelming that there was a time that I had to put my hand to the square and call upon the power of my savior to tell Satan to leave, sometimes multiple times in a day. What Elder Holland said that it is the plain and very sobering truth that before great spiritual moments, there can come adversity, opposition, and darkness. Darkness. Occasionally, they come just as we are approaching an important decision or a significant step in our lives. I share that because I just want to give you that heads up that you might feel this opposition as you seek to receive more revelation, but don't let it stop you. And actually, it was this very opposition that helped me learn how to receive even more revelation. Isn't that cool? How God consecrates all for our good. So let me share with you how. As I went to God and asked him what to do with all these horrible negative thoughts and discouraging thoughts I was having, as I was in the temple, the Lord let me know that there was something else I needed to consecrate to him. And as I prayed to know what it was, he let me know it was my thoughts. I've talked about this in past episodes, but I feel like it's worth mentioning again the power of consecrating or making sacred the thoughts that we have. And along with that came the scripture about letting virtue garnish our thoughts, which means let power garnish your thoughts. And another scripture about meditating upon God, upon scriptures day and night. It was very clear that in order for me to combat these negative thoughts, that I need to be very diligent in seeking and remembering God's word. So the first thing that I did, I took revelation that I had had since I was 14 years old. I took my patriarchal blessing and I got some cardstock and cut it into little cards. And I took lines from my patriarchal blessing and just wrote those lines down one line at a time on these cards. And as I went from my daily walk, I would take the cards with me and I would just read them over and over and over again and let these powerful thoughts enter my mind. But after a while, I felt like that just wasn't enough. I felt like I needed a reminder of these powerful thoughts more than just when I went for a walk. And also I started to receive more powerful, virtuous thoughts from God that I felt like I needed to keep in the forefront of my mind. And so one day as I was sitting pondering about how to do this, I saw an empty bulletin board just sitting in my room. I'll tell you why it was empty. I had this bulletin board because around the same time I had created a vision board for myself, things that I saw for myself, that I desired for myself. And then I got sick and it was too painful for me to look at all those desires that I felt would never happen in my life. And so I took everything off of my vision board and shoved it in a drawer. And so here was sitting this empty bulletin board. And I thought, huh, what if I just take these cards with lines for my patriarchal blessing? And I will go into my journal and pick out the most profound things God has been telling me, and I'll put them on this board. And so I did that. And I didn't hang the board on my wall. I actually left it right next to my bed so that every morning as I woke up, I would turn over and just stare at the things on the board. And I would be able to turn the board around if there was someone coming into my room that I didn't want to see the board. Or I would pick up the board and take it with me to my spot where I studied scriptures so that I could look at it as I studied and prayed and I could add more to it. And this became my personal revelation board. And it became a powerful tool that helped me to bring God's creation into my life, what he wanted to be created within me. And as God would continue to show me things, or if there were certain things that just kept on repeating in my scripture study, I would get a card, write it down, and put it on my personal revelation board until it got to the point that this entire board was full. So I want to share with you in more detail how you can create a personal revelation board of your own. For me, I wanted something more tangible that I could look out without the distraction of my phone, but do what creatively works and resonates with you. The question I get the most is how do I know what to put on my personal revelation board? Well, I already gave you some first ideas, some of some poignant lines from your patrol blessing is a great place to start. But I think this quote by President Nelson will help. He said, 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. These are the things that start on your board, starting with your questions, your concerns, your strengths, your weaknesses, things that you need God to help you with. The first questions that I had on my board was How do I increase my ability to receive personal revelation? And then God answered me. And so I put those answers on my board as well. He told me to improve my scripture study, to start a digital journal. My favorite thing to put on my board that would cultivate more revelation was questions. And for me, I got a lot of those questions as I was studying general conference talks. A lot of times, apostles or speakers will ask questions right there in their talk that resonate with you. I was studying a talk by Elder Maxwell, where he talked about how sometimes there are ideas that are too tightly wrapped around our minds that impede revelation. And when I read that, I knew that applied to me. So I put on my revelation board, what ideas are too tightly wrapped around my mind? And then President Nelson had talked about the need to walk away from things that might seem harmless. And so again, I put that on my board. What do I need to say no to, even though it may seem harmless? So start in your study, start noticing statements that you might need to turn into questions that things that stand out to you that you could ask God and then see what the answers are, and then record and post the answers. When I first started this, like I said, I was having a lot of negative thoughts. And so for me, it was really important to post powerful thoughts. And so that was one of the questions I also put on my board. What powerful thoughts can I think? I promise you, as you do this, as you're writing your journal, as you're studying your scriptures, these certain things will stand out to you. And then they'll stand out again and again. These are the things that need to go on your board. These are the things the spirit needs you to remember. And what's really neat as you start putting these things up on your board, you'll start seeing connections between the different pieces of revelation that God gives you. I want to share with you a quote from my board that is a great reminder of why a personal revelation board can be so powerful. It's a quote by Eldor Worthlin. He said, To soundly plant good seeds in your heart requires prolonged, intense, unremitting pondering. It is a deep, ongoing, regenerating process which refines the soul. This is absolutely what happened to me because over time, as I was praying over, pondering over all these statements, it changed my brain. It changed the way that I think and it brought new and beautiful things into my life. Because we know for anything that we create in our lives, it starts with a thought. And what could be more powerful than letting God be the creator of your thoughts? Now, once your personal revelation board is full, how long do you keep those things up there? Well, let me show you all my personal revelation cards from over the years. If you're watching on video, this is a huge stack, and I've kept them all. And it's really neat going back and reading them and just seeing how much has come to pass and how much I've changed. So the easy answer is I let the spirit direct me as to how long something is supposed to stay on that board. Um, let me give you an example of something that I had up on my board, but I knew when it was time to take it down. When God first started instructing me to do things, I would start and then I would feel so discouraged. And so this scripture from Alma 26 really stood out to me and gave me courage where it says, we were about to turn back. Behold, the Lord comforted us and said, Bear with patience thine afflictions, and I will give unto you success. When you read a scripture that you feel like God is speaking that to you, write it down, put it on the board. I felt like God was speaking this to me, but over time, I didn't need that comfort anymore. This scripture was in my heart, in my mind, and I had started to see the success that God promised. And so I knew it was time to go ahead and take that off my board and replace it with something else. And also, after my board was completely full, I took my phone and I recorded a voice memo of me speaking every single phrase that was on my board. And then there were some days that I would just put my headphones in and I would listen to those powerful thoughts and questions. Because it's one thing to read something, it's another thing to actually hear it. And it was interesting. After having my personal revelation board up and rotating through different things on my board, there was this one time I was actually just about to start my podcast for the first time, and I had it cleared an entire week to record my first episodes. Well, it came to that week, and the spirit directed me differently. The spirit let me know that I was to actually spend that entire week going to the temple as much as I could. So I didn't record and I went to the temple every day for hours. And at the end of the week, God let me know that it was time to take everything down from my personal revelation board and put up all the things He had been teaching me that week. And what I saw was that the Lord had given me an instruction for a day of creation in my life. Now, and I have this on my board. But it was neat. He had given me instruction that would last for the next year that gave me insights for things that I didn't even know were coming. And so I used my revelation board in that way for a time, imagining the pattern of creation where we desire God's will. And things are created spiritually first, perhaps starting as a thought. And then just as the Savior went forth and created the world through priesthood power, I felt God's power in my life to create these things He had instructed me to do. And I knew that after I had accomplished and understood everything that was on my personal revelation board, I would return and report to my Heavenly Father and ask him for more instruction, more revelation. And that's how it has flowed since then. But what I also love to imagine is that Christ is next to me. Every instruction that Heavenly Father gives me, Christ goes with me and he helps me accomplish those things. And truly, I know that if I will follow this pattern for the rest of my life, that I will fill the measure of my creation, that what I create will be exactly God's will for me, and it will be more glorious than I could possibly imagine. Now, this is my old personal revelation board, this bulletin board. Now I have a personal revelation room. I turned one of the empty closets in my house into a prayer closet where I'm sitting right now and recording this podcast. The wall opposite me is filled with note cards. And I always have note cards and markers at the ready to write down things that are profound to me. And I post them up on my wall. And as I kneel down to pray every day, I review those things. And as I review them, I know that I'm going to become what God has instructed. And as I review them, additional revelation comes. It's amazing how easy it is to forget. This world is so distracting. And there'll be days where I don't come into my prayer closet for a few days. And it's amazing how quickly I can lose track of what is most important. And that's another reason why I feel like in this day, it is so important for us to be surrounded by God's word. This is how we can be in the world, but not of the world. And whatever it is God has for you to create in your life, whether it's of a spiritual nature or not, you know, He might not be asking you to do what He asked me to do here on this podcast and sharing my faith online. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, when you create with God, Christ is with you. He is in you. And you emulate Christ and you testify of Christ and you make of your life a ministry, no matter what you do. I want to share another question with you that was on my board, along with a beautiful quote. I constantly ask God, what is my diligent labor? What is thy command? And whatever that answer is for me, for you, we need to remember what President Hinckley said. Your obligation is as serious in your sphere of responsibility as in my obligation in my sphere. You have as great an opportunity for satisfaction in the performance of your duty as I do in mine. And what will happen as we do this, as we seek and record this revelation and remember it daily in our lives. Listen to what President Nelson said. Every blessing the Lord has for you, even miracles will follow. That is what personal revelation will do for you. So now, so now if I can be a little bit vulnerable with you, I want to give you an example of this promise, the miracles that have happened in my life. Because as I explained before, I had had up all these visions and dreams that I had for myself on my board, my vision board before ever was a revelation board. And I took them all down because I was so sick and so discouraged. And a couple years after I had started my personal revelation board and tried to follow with exactness everything God was showing me. I was actually in the middle of recording a story on Instagram and talking about my personal revelation board. And as I was, I remembered, I was like, oh, wait, I still have the cards that used to be up on that board that was my vision board. And I went into my room and opened up a drawer that I hadn't looked in in years and found a stack of these cards. And as I started reading through them, I was blown away because every single thing I had written on those cards for my vision board had either already come to pass or it was about to come to pass. Can I share some of them with you? They are all on these white cards with pink writing. These are the original cards that were written years ago. This one says, I speak at women's conferences across the country. I can't even believe that this is this is true now. When I wrote these things down, and this is why this is vulnerable to me, is because I honestly didn't even believe these things as I wrote them down. And I wasn't sure that I entirely wanted these things or wanted to do the work to get there. These were just things that the spirit was putting in my heart and communicating to me that was a part of my future. And it was very hard for me to have faith and accept that this is what God wanted me to do. But I had the courage to write it down. Another card says, I lead a successful charity. Hope smiling brightly is a nonprofit. That has happened. I have written a book that will bring others closer to Christ. And that is already true. I have a book that is coming out next year, being sold with Deseret Book. This one kind of cracks me up because I've told you before how I had always promised I would never do a podcast. So I think I intentionally refuse to use the word podcast when I wrote this card down. I create talks and trainings through video and audio that teach the spiritual things of life. And just let God give me the baby steps, which at the time I didn't even know were baby steps, but just let God give me his instruction that those things began to naturally come to pass. And I believe that for you too. Whatever it is that God has in store for you, whatever desires you have in your heart, they're there for a reason. And as you turn to God every day for his instruction, remember it, read it, listen to it, let it sink deep into your heart and mind and act upon it. Miraculous things will happen in your life. Now, after listening to this, if you are excited to start your own personal revelation board or closet, don't worry, you don't have to remember everything that I said. If you feel like you want a little more instruction, I'm going to leave you a link in the show notes where you can get uh typed up instructions and ideas for your personal revelation board, and even ideas for cards you might put on your revelation board, questions that you might ask, reminders that might be helpful to you, scriptures uh that are inspiring and remind you of Christ's power, affirmations that are Christ-centered, and quotes from general conference. These might be a quick start for you. Or take these ideas and make your own cards with scriptures and quotes and pieces of your patriarchal blessing and thoughts and ideas that God has put into your mind and put them up on your board. So as we wrap up, I've given you a lot of questions today, but here's some questions you might ask God. What will you create with me? How do I increase my spiritual capacity to receive revelation on what to create? Christ is creating with you. Christ is creating you. Christ is hoping smiling.