How do I communicate with God? How do I build a better relationship with God? How do I learn from God if I can’t hear Him? These are some of the most commonly asked questions from the Saints Unscripted audience and we totally understand where you are coming from! It’s not easy to figure out how God speaks to you. While we aren’t experts, we have some experiences that we want to share, as well as thoughts from others about how best to build your relationship with God. How do you learn about God and build your relationship with Him?
Transcript:
Allex: And I don’t think there’s anything wrong also, with when you’re trying to figure out how He talks to you, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just telling Him, hey, I’m trying to figure out how you talk to me. Can you …
Taylor: Give me something, see if I can pick up on it.
Allex: … help me figure this out? So that way I can connect to you more. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
David: Hey everyone. Welcome back to Saints Unscripted. Today, we’re going to be talking about something, it’s a fairly basic question, but also one that can be a little bit complicated sometimes.
Taylor: Yeah. I think we complicate it a little bit too much.
Allex: Totally.
David: I think we do, yeah. And so the general question here that we’re going to explore is, how can we build a better relationship or even just our relationship with God or with our heavenly parents generally. So obviously, this will be a subjective episode with our opinions and whatnot. And that’s necessarily the case, because there are a lot of different kinds of relationships. Your relationship might be different than mine.
Taylor: Yeah. Depending on how close you are already with God.
David: Right.
Taylor: Different things might work better for you at this stage in your relationship than other things.
David: Right.
Taylor: And so if you guys have anything that we miss, that we don’t mention, that you think is important, feel free to share it down in the comments because this is completely subjective.
David: Unscripted.
Taylor: Yeah.
Allex: It’s just, yeah.
David: What.
Allex: Whoa.
David: What.
Taylor: So what do you guys think? Thoughts? Well, David, why don’t you tell us what you think, since you are so willing to turn it on us. Why don’t you go?
David: Perhaps I will, Taylor, perhaps I will, as I buy myself time to put my thoughts together. I’m not stalling at all. No, I think I have a couple of pieces of advice, and obviously nobody has a perfect relationship with God, obvi. Everybody wants to improve their relationship with God. But in my experience, I think, like you said, we over-complicate it sometimes and we tend to forget that a lot of the same principles that apply to forming a relationship with regular people you see every day, we tend to think that that’s somehow different than forming a relationship with God, I feel like. So, obviously if you want to form a better relationship with God, spend time with Him, talk to Him.
Allex: Yeah.
Taylor: Yeah.
David: Practice.
Taylor: It’s pretty straightforward. You got to get to know someone by talking them.
Allex: Yeah, seriously.
Taylor: And that applies to God as well.
David: Yeah. And then I think the other principle that has been important for me is, learning to understand how God talks back.
Allex: That is so important, absolutely.
David: So just understanding what revelation is, how it comes, how it can come, all the different forms of it, the difference between inspiration and revelation. And once you have a good understanding of that, because sometimes we totally just misunderstand what revelation is, or maybe our expectations of revelation are different than maybe what is generally the reality. So I think as you better understand those principles, your relationship with God can grow much more easily.
Taylor: Yeah. And I think that goes back to your first point, which is you have to spend time with God in order to figure out how God talks to you. Really, you just have to spend time in prayer. You have to spend time on your knees, really opening up to Him and opening yourself up to Him. I think it’s sometimes more difficult to be vulnerable than we realize, because how many people in the church, especially, we have these phrases that we say when we’re praying that we fall into, that make it comfortable, because we don’t want to, I don’t know, maybe we don’t want to be uncomfortable when we’re praying. So we just fall into these comfort phrases, like thank you for this day, please bless that will have a good night’s sleep, we’ll travel home safely. You say, these things over and over again, and I don’t think it really quite, that’s not going to connect you with God as much as really expressing what you’re feeling.
Allex: Yeah.
David: Being vulnerable.
Taylor: When you’re talking about what you want to … yeah, be vulnerable with God.
Allex: Yeah. Totally. And I think that, and like you were saying earlier, it’s really nothing different than our everyday relationships with people. It’s as easy as just talking with Him and just telling Him what’s troubling you, tell Him what-
Taylor: How your day went.
Allex: … how your day went, exactly.
Taylor: I mean, He’s your Heavenly Father.
Allex: Yeah. He wants to know. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong also, with when you’re trying to figure out how He talks to you, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just telling Him, hey, I’m trying to figure out how you talk to me, can you help me figure this out.
Taylor: Give me something.
Speaker 4: Victor?
Speaker 5: Opa.
Speaker 4: I need your help.
Taylor: … I can pick up on it.
Allex: So that way I can connect to you more. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, because it can be hard to do that on your own, you know?
Taylor: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Allex: And then that helps you connect with Him.
Taylor: Yeah. And the Scriptures say constantly to ask. God is always telling us to ask, and He wants you to implore Him for things. Even if it’s just like, hey, is there anything that you want to tell me? And then just wait and keep your eyes open, keep your feelings and your heart open. And yeah.
David: I think that we also, there’s a place for the Scriptures, right?
Taylor: Definitely.
David: In that relationship.
Allex: Totally.
David: And the Scriptures are a great way to, maybe you look back through history and read about who God is, and see some of the …
Taylor: The relationships that He had with people.
David: Yeah. Looking at their relationships can help you understand God a little bit more and help you build your relationship with Him.
Speaker 6: What do you want with me?
Speaker 7: I have seen the oppression of my people in Egypt, and have heard their cry.
Allex: Totally.
David: It helps you understand a little bit maybe how God works and maybe how He doesn’t work.
Taylor: Yeah.
Allex: Oh, yeah.
David: So they can help you manage your expectations for what this relationship is going to be. Now, that’s not to say that the Scriptures are the only way to understand God, because they’re not, but they’re a great source.
Allex: Yeah. They can definitely help. I think it’s also important to remember that you do not have to be a member of the LDS church. You don’t have to be really a member of any sort, you don’t have to belong to any sort of church just because you are still God’s child and He still wants to hear from you, regardless. And so absolutely anybody can speak to Him. Anybody can pray to Him.
Taylor: Right. I will say though, that of all of the organized, honestly, I think one of God’s main reasons for restoring His church was to teach us the most efficient means of connecting with Him. I think that there’s a spectrum of effectiveness, in terms of practices to connect and build a relationship with God.
David: Just like in real life.
Taylor: Yeah. Just like in real life. And it’s almost like, this is purely a subjective opinion because I’ve been in the church and I’ve found it to be incredibly effective at building my relationship with God. I think that one of the reasons He established the churches so that we could get, by the way, these things are surefire ways, living the gospel will help you connect the most with God that I’ve experienced anyway. I mean, it might be different for other people, but as far as I’m concerned, I feel like the church, you don’t have to be a member of the church to connect with God, but I do feel like being a member of the church certainly helps.
David: Yeah.
Allex: Yeah.
Taylor: And I think that having those principles and those teachings helps.
Allex: Right.
David: Sure. And I think that even exploring other faiths, because there’s kind of a Latter Day Saint culture, and that might be geography specific, maybe Utah Latter Day Saint culture is different than India Latter Day Saint culture. but exploring other faith cultures, I think, can expose you to some interesting new ways of thinking about your relationship with God as well, and there’s some value there.
Taylor: Definitely.
David: But building off of what you said, it’s also important to remember that there’s no worthiness. I mean, I guess worthiness, I don’t want to put it that way, but God doesn’t think like, oh, you committed this sin …
Taylor: Don’t talk to me.
David: Don’t talk … He’s not going to give you the-
Allex: Yeah. You’re not allowed to do that. Yeah.
David: Obviously, you want to invite the Holy Ghost into your life, and you want that to be a constant presence. But at the same time, if you’re trying to reach out to God, He’s not going to give you the silent treatment, right?
Allex: No.
David: He’s not going to be emotionally abusive towards you. That doesn’t mean that He’s going to just respond immediately and all your dreams are going to come true.
Speaker 8: If you vote for me, all of your wildest dreams will come true.
Taylor: And I do think that there are times when, even though we’re trying to reach out to God, emotionally we may think that we are, but we’re not quite receptive. We’re not in a right state of mind or a right state of heart, so to speak, to receive that, to hear Him. And so, you may not hear His responses, that doesn’t mean that He wouldn’t be responding if you were in a right mindset. If that makes sense.
David: Yeah. He’s going to do what’s best for you, and if a little bit of silence is best for you, so you can work things out on your own, then that’s that.
Taylor: But that’s all part of learning to trust Him, and building that relationship is how you learn to …
Allex: That’s so true.
Taylor: That’s all part of the game, or the relationship building process.
David: Yeah. All right, guys, we want to hear your opinions. Please let us know how you have built a relationship with your Heavenly Father or your heavenly parents. Let us know some of your tips and tricks so that we can try them out. Make sure to subscribe to the channel if you haven’t yet, and have a great day.