When we strive to listen to the Holy Ghost, we can be blessed not just with occasional guidance but with constant companionship.
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Standing with his father in a hospital room, President Henry B. Eyring watched his mother succumb to cancer. After years of fighting the disease, she passed from this life to the next. When she passed away, President Eyring’s father quietly said, “A little girl has gone home.”
Recounting this experience years later, President Eyring remembered that his father “shed no tears. That was because the Holy Ghost had long before given him a clear picture of who she was, where she came from, what she had become, and where she was going.”
In his talk “The Holy Ghost as Your Companion,” President Eyring explains that throughout his mother‘s decades-long fight with cancer, his father received the comfort and reassurance that he needed in order to have an eternal perspective when she passed from this life to the next. His comfort and perspective during this trying time wouldn’t have been possible without the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.
President Eyring reminds us that after baptism, hands are laid upon our heads, we are given the gift of the Holy Ghost, and, as we are reminded in D&C 20, we “may always have his Spirit to be with [us]” (D&C 20:77; emphasis added).
That Spirit warns us of danger, helps us resist temptation, and comforts us. “So, for many reasons, we need the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. We desire it, yet we know from experience that it is not easy to maintain. We each think, say, and do things in our daily lives that can offend the Spirit.” Keeping ourselves worthy is essential to receiving the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
To discover additional suggestions from President Henry B. Eyring on how to receive the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, read or watch “The Holy Ghost as Your Companion.”
Source: lds.org
—Emily Russon, Mormon Insights
feature image by LDS Media Library CC by NC
Find more insights
To learn more about our responsibility to utilize the gift of the Holy Ghost, read Elder David A. Bednar’s talk “Receive the Holy Ghost.”
Check out Leah Welker’s Mormon Insights article “How Can I Feel the Holy Spirit More?”
Watch President James E. Faust’s video “Voice of the Spirit” to see how listening to the Spirit is like tuning a radio.