Study Recap: Revelation by Dallin H. Oaks

Title: Revelation
Author: Dallin H. Oaks
Source: devotional address given at BYU on 29 September 1981
Link: http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=568&tid=7
Rating: 4/5

Favorite Points

• I can identify eight different purposes served by communication from God: (1) to testify; (2) to prophesy; (3) to comfort; (4) to uplift; (5) to inform; (6) to restrain; (7) to confirm; and (8) to impel.
• Elder McConkie summarized his counsel on the balance between agency and inspiration in these sentences:
  
  We’re expected to use the gifts and talents and abilities, the sense and judgment and agency with which we are endowed [p. 108]. . . . Implicit in asking in faith is the precedent requirement that we do everything in our power to accomplish the goal that we seek [p. 110]. . . . We’re expected to do everything in our power that we can, and then to seek an answer from the Lord, a confirming seal that we’ve reached the right conclusion [p. 113].
• The eighth purpose or type of revelation consists of those instances when the Spirit impels a person to action. This is not a case where a person proposes to take a particular action and the Spirit either restrains or confirms. This is a case where revelation comes when it is not being sought and impels some action not proposed. This type of revelation is obviously less common than other types, but its rarity makes it all the more significant.
• What about those times when we seek revelation and do not receive it? We do not always receive inspiration or revelation when we request it. Sometimes we are delayed in the receipt of revelation, and sometimes we are left to our own judgment. We cannot force spiritual things. It must be so. Our life’s purpose to obtain experience and to develop faith would be frustrated if our Heavenly Father directed us in every act, even in every important act. We must make decisions and experience the consequences in order to develop self-reliance and faith.
• Even in decisions we think very important, we sometimes receive no answers to our prayers. This does not mean that our prayers have not been heard. It only means that we have prayed about a decision which, for one reason or another, we should make without guidance by revelation.
• Perhaps we have asked for guidance in choosing between alternatives that are equally acceptable or equally unacceptable. I suggest that there is not a right and wrong to every question.
• I once heard a young woman in testimony meeting praise the spirituality of her husband, indicating that he submitted every question to the Lord. She told how he accompanied her shopping and would not even choose between different brands of canned vegetables without making his selection a matter of prayer. That strikes me as improper.
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