The Recipe for Revelation
By Amber Pearce
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Website leftwithasmile.com
Is there a secret recipe to revelation?
Here’s a confession. I’m an obsessive recipe follower. Why not follow exact steps that promise exact results every time? I develop a little twitch when I see someone toss a cup of flour into a recipe without meticulously leveling it off with the flat end of a butter knife.
On the other hand, my mom says, “Oh, I don’t follow a recipe, I just toss in whatever.” I’m building up to that, but it has taken a few sessions of therapy. Maybe that is why I crave detailed instructions. When I tried to teach myself to bake there was never a measuring spoon or cup to be found. I’d ask my mom how much a teaspoon was and she would open a drawer full of random utensils, grab something and say, “this looks about right.”
This compulsion to follow instructions for everything spilled over into my own motherhood. When it was time to give my baby her first bath, I had a parenting magazine open next to me with step by step instructions on How To Bathe Your Baby. I had to make sure I was doing it “right” as my baby was screaming to get her very detailed bath over with. My mom was standing next to me and I am sure she was the one developing a twitch during that one. While I am not quite that recipe driven anymore, there was one thing I desired a step by step recipe for more than anything else.
What is the step by step guide to receive personal revelation?
I was determined to find out. If a conference talk was about personal revelation I was immediately glued. I read books. I asked others how they received revelation. I was getting that secret recipe if was the last thing I did!
Guess what I found out? Revelation does and doesn’t have a recipe all at the same time. Great.
There are some basic principles we all can practice that point us in the right direction, but God wants His words to speak to us individually. Just like I have to speak differently to my literal child than I do to my free-spirited child, the Lord has to speak differently to each of us.
Was it possible for me to go rogue enough for a “whatever” when it came to hearing God’s word for me? How does one get past the recipe and get confident enough to toss in a wild card? Sometimes it takes effort to get comfortable in the kitchen of revelation. It is okay to start with recipes to get a feel for what they create. Soon you gain enough confidence to add a little more of this, a little less of that, or try a new ingredient all together.
There actually happens to be a revelation recipe that was a huge turning point for me. I found it in a book by Wendy Watson Nelson called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. She called it the “Take a Daily Question to the Scriptures for 30 Days Experiment.”
It only has 4 steps:
1. Take your scriptures and kneel down and thank your Heavenly Father, in the Name of Jesus Christ for the scriptures.
2. Ask for the Spirit to be with you as you seek an answer to your one question for that day. Picture the Holy Ghost right there with you as you read.
3. Ask your Heavenly Father the one question you most need to have answered that day.
4. Open your scriptures and read until you find your answer.
She also encouraged recording your experiences and answers.
I did the experiment for 30 days because you know me and following instructions. I guess the title of her book was right though; it did change my life. Daily focused communication helped me get more fluent in the language of the Spirit. It gave me confidence that I could receive inspiration whenever I asked for it and I started seeking in different ways.
The more I have let go of that perfect “revelation recipe,” the more I’ve been able to hear the Lord’s voice. But it has taken a lot of different methods to get me there. A little bit of this from one recipe and a little bit of that from another. It comes together for a often messy, but somehow beautiful result.
Open your mind to the possibility that there is always a more delicious result than you have ever tasted if you are just willing to change up your current ingredients. You box yourself in when you stick to one “foolproof formula,” believing you can only receive revelation in certain circumstances.
Let God help you with the recipe of revelation as you figure out what inspires you. Just when you think you’ve landed on the perfect ingredients for you, He will give you even more.