Things As They Really Are: The Still Small Voice
By Bethany Tolley
I remember getting on my knees as a teenager. I’d just finished reading the Book of Mormon. So, I was doing what Moroni 10:3-5 said, I was asking of God if the book was true. After praying and asking, I knelt there for a long time. I waited… A thought came to my mind after a bit. You already know the answer. Was it my thought? Was it God’s? Whether it was His voice or my own didn’t really matter. Because I did already know that the Book of Mormon was true.
Did I want a pillar of light and a choir of angels to validate what I already knew? Yes. Is that what I got? No. Before I got down on my knees to ask, I’d already known the Book of Mormon was true because of the impact it had already had in my life; because of feelings I’d already had and experienced. Since the day I had begrudgingly decided to start reading it—at the insistence of an older sister—I’d drunken in every word. Though I had begrudgingly began, after starting, reading each night was like satisfying a deep thirst I’d never known I’d had.
Sometimes, answers and promptings from God seem a bit uneventful. They are simple. Sometimes we confuse them with our own thoughts. Sometimes, they are powerful, even persuasive. Sometimes we have a transcendent moment in a testimony meeting, General Conference, lesson preparation, talking with a close friend, or during prayers. Then, sometimes for weeks, months, and years it seems we don’t hear anything momentous or significant from the Holy Ghost.
It’s a still, small voice, right? But what does that really mean? I’m certain I don’t have all the answers. But from my own pondering, I have learned that the word “still” means that the Holy Ghost is not demanding, noisy or distracting in a way that would compromise our agency. The word “small” has many meanings; but for me it means that the Holy Spirit’s communications are not overdone, or so grand that our agency is compromised. In fact, how God communicates with us through the Holy Spirit has a lot to do with protecting our agency and allowing us to retain the privilege to act, and not to be acted upon (2 Nephi 2:14).
According to the Bible Dictionary, the “power of the Holy Ghost” is a powerful witness from the Holy Ghost—a strong message that something is true. Most of us have felt one of those powerful witnesses. Was that still? Was that small? Yes, and yet we still felt it powerfully—that’s an example of what “still” and “small” means. The describing words “still and small”, if taken too literally, can lead us to think that hearing the Holy Ghost is a game of hide and seek. It is not. God “doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men” (2 Nephi 2:26). What those words do mean is that God will not use compulsion.
In the scriptures we learn that compulsion is contrary to God’s plan for us (Doctrine and Covenants 121:37, Alma 42:27, Moses 4:1-4). The Holy Ghost is God’s messenger. But His communication is not meant to control or force us to do God’s will. Thus, the communications of this treasured member of the Godhead must be “still and small”. He can influence and encourage, but He will never “force the human mind” (Know this that Every Soul is Free, LDS Hymns, 240).
One of my biggest struggles has been telling God’s inspirations and revelations from my own thoughts. Then, while sitting in a testimony meeting one Sunday, when another ward member was bearing her testimony about the Holy Ghost and her own struggles recognizing the Spirit, I got a heavenly download.
The Spirit brought a particular passage in the scriptures to my remembrance. I remembered Christ praying among the Nephites during His appearance there. The words brought most clearly to my mind were these, “Father, thou hast given them the Holy Ghost because they believe in me…And now Father, I pray unto thee for them…that they may believe in me, that I may be in them as thou, Father, art in me, that we may be one” (3 Nephi 19:22-23, italics for emphasis).
I have struggled for years and years wondering if thoughts I’m having are my thoughts or promptings or messages from the Holy Ghost. I pray to know if they are, and then I don’t really get anything. It hit me, then, sitting in that testimony meeting, that because I have the gift of the Holy Ghost, and I believe in Christ, and try with all my heart to follow Him, that in many things He and I are “one”. I was thrown back to all those years before: You already know…
The scriptures teach that good things can only come from God (Moroni 7:15-17), and we have been encouraged to “never suppress a generous thought” (Craig, Michelle D., Divine Discontent, Conference Address October 2018). However, it never occurred to me that sometimes, when I’m especially in tune and seeking God’s will that whether it’s my thought or His message to me is irrelevant. That I’m naturally, of my own will, choosing something righteous and good is a manifestation that in that decision, He and I are “one”. It is both my thought and His. It’s a still, small, and powerful experience.
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