I love the song from the Children’s Songbook, written by Elizabeth Cushing Taylor, that says,

“We do not see the wind, we only hear it sigh. It makes the grasses bend whenever it goes by.”

The song is about God’s love, hence the title of it, “God’s Love.” The same words also apply to how the Holy Ghost works. We don’t see the Holy Ghost, but we can see and feel the effects of listening to Him, just as we can see wind blowing the grass.

Yesterday in church, two speakers each shared a story about listening to the Holy Ghost.

The first said this was his first time he remembers getting revelation from God. He was 17 and worked construction as a summer job in California’s Central Valley. He said that he had a busy day, waking up at 6 AM to get to his construction shift before it got too hot. After a long day of doing construction, he and his brother then went banana boating on a lake. They had fun creating “rooster tails” of water in the wake of the boat. Then they went home for dinner. After dinner, he went to water polo practice. After practice, his whole body ached with physical exhaustion and his brain was tired too. On the way home, he thought of friend’s name, Anne. He wondered why her name popped into his brain? Maybe he should go see her? He vacillated between going home and crawling into bed right away or stopping to see her. He finally decided to go see how she was doing. They visited for an hour on her porch. As she said goodbye to him, she thanked him for coming. She said she had felt particularly lonely that day and prayed that a friend would come see her.

Wow, I love that story!

Then another speaker shared this story. She said that she had been making crepes in her kitchen. She was almost done when she heard a voice in her head to move the margarine and put it back in the fridge. She thought that was strange. Why should she do that? Couldn’t it wait until she was all done cooking? She resisted the voice, but it repeated. She felt irritated that the voice was so bossy. She finally gave in. Within a second after putting it away, the light cover that had been close to the ceiling crashed to the floor. She had been standing right under it while cooking. She said that if she hadn’t moved to the fridge, she would have been seriously injured. Her youth summer camp was starting the next day. If she had been injured, she wouldn’t have been able to go. She realized that the Holy Spirit guided her, saving her from harm, allowing her to have future fun and growth.

Both speakers said that each story was the first time that the speaker recognized the Holy Spirit, in other words, revelation from God. That made me think of my first time. I had been practicing my violin and misplaced the bow. I prayed that I would find it. Righter after I said amen, the image popped into my mind of the bow sitting in the space behind the head cushion of my parents’ huge, overstuffed sofa. I looked and there it was!

I’m so grateful for the Holy Spirit! The Holy Ghost allows us to know the mind and will of God, to know anything He wants us to know for our eternal happiness and the eternal happiness of those around us. As the first speaker whose story I shared above said, “I didn’t grow up in the Marvel Comic movie universe, but I can’t think of any superpower I’d rather have than the constant gift of the Holy Ghost.”

Indeed, President Russell M. Nelson, the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has told us that the most important ability we can get is to hear and follow the voice of Jesus Christ, as revealed through the Holy Ghost. Watch his speech below or read it here.