Has the Spirit ever told you to do Something that you Disagreed with?

[bluebell]

This is mostly just my curious mind wondering about random stuff.  I don't have any agenda.  The question popped into my mind when someone was speaking yesterday in conference (I don't remember who it was, we were driving back from Utah and were listening in the car) about the exclusivity of worship and how we don't have any other gods before God, even ourselves.

It made me wonder, how often are we are own gods without even noticing?

[Kenngo1969]

Yes.

 Law school.  

I don't think that's gonna pay any dividends for me ... on this side of the veil.  It would be so much simpler if the Spirit said, "Yeah, Ken.  Sorry, but you screwed up.  Royally."  Perhaps I'm simply delusional or in denial, but I cannot (based at least partly on other ministrations I've had from the Spirit about the matter) bring myself to believe that.

I have absolutely no idea why I was supposed to go to law school.  The only answer I've ever gotten is, "Yes, Ken: You did what I wanted you to do ... then."

[rpn]

Lots of times that I didn't want to do it.   Sometimes that I was willing but couldn't.  I hope I'm better at figuring out how to do things now than I was when I was younger.

[MustardSeed]

I once thought the spirit was telling me to get divorced. 
I disagreed.  
I still don’t know what that was all about.  Thank goodness it was likely a misunderstanding. I hope.  I’m in this deep lol 

[Chum]

33 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

I once thought the spirit was telling me to get divorced.

Same. Or at least I assume the Spirit was because God loves me. Everyone else certainly was - kids, in-laws, friends, bishop. 

[Chum]

I wasn't often right about the source of messaging. Like ever.  I eventually figured out that the sensory apparatus that the spirit impresses upon - it is not well developed in me. There wasn't a place for those feelings to land. 
The upshot is I never had peaceful impressions from the temple or sacrament or ordinances or anything else. Irrespective of worthiness. 

Same thing for Church leaders. I mean, I could piratically see and feel the mantle resting on a bishop. I really did appreciate what that meant. But the feelings were neutral. Maybe I felt spiritual pressure but it wasn't positive or negative. 

Late in life I did some fairly intense internal work. After that I had some capacity to feel some new things. Well, life was in survival mode another decade so once that passed - then I could feel some things. 

[The Nehor]

Yes.

Sometimes I followed it. Sometimes not. Results were very mixed.

[CV75]

13 hours ago, bluebell said:

This is mostly just my curious mind wondering about random stuff.  I don't have any agenda.  The question popped into my mind when someone was speaking yesterday in conference (I don't remember who it was, we were driving back from Utah and were listening in the car) about the exclusivity of worship and how we don't have any other gods before God, even ourselves.

It made me wonder, how often are we are own gods without even noticing?

I get a stupor of thought in such situations, but that is more about the Spirit disagreeing with me.

I am not aware of a time where my ignoring a prompting resulted in something bad happening, though I do recall resisting the thought to say something that might open up a gospel conversation. I hope to do better.

[cujo22]

I really hope the culture in the church of how we discuss our interactions with God changes. I seriously greatly respect bluebell's contributions, love it, so this isn't personal at all, but this question is based on a way of viewing our interactions with God that really make no sense to me. But very standard/typical in the church. I also recognize different brains process things differently. For example, I can't listen to Elder Gong's talks hardly, seems like a collection of sentences that are unrelated to each other. So I'm not even saying this way of viewing our interactions with God is wrong necessarily, but offering another way of thinking about them that makes more sense to me.

How do I differentiate between the spirit's voice and my own thoughts? What if I disagree and or agree with the voice? What does the Spirit sound like to you? We hear these types of questions in general conference even, so they're totally normal, but I find them very misguided.

I really think these questions are crazy-making. And so confusing as we teach kids. Am I supposed to be trying to hear a voice? Why have I never heard a voice? Plus these questions pre-suppose a concept of earth-life that we don't even believe in, like we're trying to get tuned just right so that we can receive messages, become robots where we get messages from the Spirit and then go and do. When we all know this would be a poor approach to learning, with the teacher telling us all the answers as we're taking the math test. I just can't make any sense of the concept. We tell our kids to listen to the Spirit but basically never offer any clarify as to what we're talking about.  

The approach to viewing our interactions with God that I prefer is a "walk with God" concept. I teach my kids, "You've been given the gift of the Holy Ghost. Strive to walk with God. Do what is appropriate to draw close to Him. And you can have confidence He is with you. As you do so you can/should trust your melded thoughts and feelings. When there's a choice to be made, study things out, try to makes sense of it, pray, whatever, and the make a decision with confidence and work toward making that decision a success." Something like that. This approach completely removes the concept of an completed detached outside voice talking to us, and instead revelation becomes a collaborative thing, and it gives the Gift of the Holy Ghost real meaning. We're not going through life, hoping to hear a voice from time to time. Rather, we have entered into a relationship with God, we're walking with Him, humbly trying to do the right thing. What a relief that I'll never have try to figure out whether that thought was mine or some other voice. We are are working through this problem together with God. My thoughts being mysteriously molded by Him, something like that. When we we read "still small voice" in the scriptures, I really the best way to interpret that practically is as a mysterious voice that is working in us an on us, not as a literal quiet voice. I mean, that crazy-making, listening for a small voice.

So I'm basically understanding revelation as being on a continuum of collaborativeness (even if that's not a word). We are ALWAYS part of it. Some revelations are 99% God and 1% us (an example might be the First Vision or Moses's stone tablets, depending on how you imagine those experiences happening). Most revelations are much more us, maybe 50/50 or 80/20 or something, and that makes sense because we're on earth to learn and grow, and that can only happen as we exercise our faculties to learn and grow make better and better decisions. Lots more could be said.  

One thing I love about this approach is that there's this other set of questions that may people struggle with that become kind of meaningless, stuff like:
- I felt so inspired as I prepared that lesson. I think I learned more than anyone will that I'm teaching. But I don't want to pass my thoughts along like their God's. How can I be sure?
- I was having a horrible day and a friend called me and let me know she was thinking of me. I wonder if that was God reaching out or do I just have a great friend?
- The Book of Mormon is a beautiful mystery. Some aspects seem truly ancient, some seem potentially influenced by Joseph's world. Is it from God or from Joseph?

The correct answer in my way of thinking, to all these questions, is both. Both God and the individual did it. Both. Collaborative.

This way of seeing things resolves a lot of questions about prophets and scripture and personal revelation and it allows us to remain humble and seeking rather than inappropriately confident (like Daybell killing his kids cuz God told him to). Cuz we always accept that we're part of the process.

[cujo22]

So in answer to Bluebell. Yes, I have thoughts all the time that I end up changing my mind on. I have a thought, I hear other people opinions about the subject, maybe I read something, as I think through other aspects/impact of the subject I might think the opposite decision is better overall. I've had some that seemed mostly God's voice (90/10 collaboration). Like once on the mission we planned a lesson for the next day that we were a little uneasy about but still thought it for the best. The next morning both my companion and I woke up with strong feeling/thoughts that it was a bad idea. God felt so close and it seemed so clear that that lesson was a bad idea. But I don't interpret it that like I listened to the devil the day before and to God that day or whatever. I'm walking with God, making right decision that best I know how, and trusting that God is with me and definitely think God stopped me like that a few times in my life. But He speaks to us like that in a mysterious way, rarely and maybe never in a way that will be very interesting or convincing to my friends and neighbors, you know? Like I feel so moved by some amazing experience with God, but people around me wouldn't see anything at all. Now that's what I would call a still, small voice, right?

[bluebell]

12 minutes ago, cujo22 said:

I really hope the culture in the church of how we discuss our interactions with God changes. I seriously greatly respect bluebell's contributions, love it, so this isn't personal at all, but this question is based on a way of viewing our interactions with God that really make no sense to me. But very standard/typical in the church. I also recognize different brains process things differently. For example, I can't listen to Elder Gong's talks hardly, seems like a collection of sentences that are unrelated to each other. So I'm not even saying this way of viewing our interactions with God is wrong necessarily, but offering another way of thinking about them that makes more sense to me.

How do I differentiate between the spirit's voice and my own thoughts? What if I disagree and or agree with the voice? What does the Spirit sound like to you? We hear these types of questions in general conference even, so they're totally normal, but I find them very misguided.

I really think these questions are crazy-making. And so confusing as we teach kids. Am I supposed to be trying to hear a voice? Why have I never heard a voice? Plus these questions pre-suppose a concept of earth-life that we don't even believe in, like we're trying to get tuned just right so that we can receive messages, become robots where we get messages from the Spirit and then go and do. When we all know this would be a poor approach to learning, with the teacher telling us all the answers as we're taking the math test. I just can't make any sense of the concept. We tell our kids to listen to the Spirit but basically never offer any clarify as to what we're talking about.  

The approach to viewing our interactions with God that I prefer is a "walk with God" concept. I teach my kids, "You've been given the gift of the Holy Ghost. Strive to walk with God. Do what is appropriate to draw close to Him. And you can have confidence He is with you. As you do so you can/should trust your melded thoughts and feelings. When there's a choice to be made, study things out, try to makes sense of it, pray, whatever, and the make a decision with confidence and work toward making that decision a success." Something like that. This approach completely removes the concept of an completed detached outside voice talking to us, and instead revelation becomes a collaborative thing, and it gives the Gift of the Holy Ghost real meaning. We're not going through life, hoping to hear a voice from time to time. Rather, we have entered into a relationship with God, we're walking with Him, humbly trying to do the right thing. What a relief that I'll never have try to figure out whether that thought was mine or some other voice. We are are working through this problem together with God. My thoughts being mysteriously molded by Him, something like that. When we we read "still small voice" in the scriptures, I really the best way to interpret that practically is as a mysterious voice that is working in us an on us, not as a literal quiet voice. I mean, that crazy-making, listening for a small voice.

So I'm basically understanding revelation as being on a continuum of collaborativeness (even if that's not a word). We are ALWAYS part of it. Some revelations are 99% God and 1% us (an example might be the First Vision or Moses's stone tablets, depending on how you imagine those experiences happening). Most revelations are much more us, maybe 50/50 or 80/20 or something, and that makes sense because we're on earth to learn and grow, and that can only happen as we exercise our faculties to learn and grow make better and better decisions. Lots more could be said.  

One thing I love about this approach is that there's this other set of questions that may people struggle with that become kind of meaningless, stuff like:
- I felt so inspired as I prepared that lesson. I think I learned more than anyone will that I'm teaching. But I don't want to pass my thoughts along like their God's. How can I be sure?
- I was having a horrible day and a friend called me and let me know she was thinking of me. I wonder if that was God reaching out or do I just have a great friend?
- The Book of Mormon is a beautiful mystery. Some aspects seem truly ancient, some seem potentially influenced by Joseph's world. Is it from God or from Joseph?

The correct answer in my way of thinking, to all these questions, is both. Both God and the individual did it. Both. Collaborative.

This way of seeing things resolves a lot of questions about prophets and scripture and personal revelation and it allows us to remain humble and seeking rather than inappropriately confident (like Daybell killing his kids cuz God told him to). Cuz we always accept that we're part of the process.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and a different way to look at things.  If it works then I think it's a good way of looking at our relationship with the Spirit.  Like you said, different things work for different people and it seems like part of this life is figuring out what works for us, and also being able to present different options to people so they can figure out what works for them too.  One of the things that I have sometimes struggled with in the church is how different doctrines or practices are presented as 'the' way to do something.  I like it when our experiences in the gospel are personal and not just institutional.

When I asked the question I wasn't really thinking about our ability to perceive revelation at all, but I also didn't clarify much in my OP because I was fine with however posters interpreted the question. 

Speaking for myself, I was thinking more about whether or not our biases cause us to set up gods that are just like ourselves.  Does God always agree with me?  If I don't like a specific teaching do I automatically assume that the person teaching it is wrong or are am I sincerely open to myself being wrong and God actually agreeing with the person I disagree with? 

(that's obviously a simplistic way of articulating it but it's the jist of where my mind was)

If God and I never disagree, then I see that as a red flag, since I'm a fallen mortal and God is....God.  So I started to wonder, where have I disagreed with God?  If I couldn't think of anything, then (for me) that was a sign that I had gone off the track somewhere and needed to redirect some things.

And it made me wonder if others had had similar experiences, where they had real world examples of the differences between their knowledge and reasoning, and God's knowledge and reasoning.

[cujo22]

6 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and a different way to look at things.  If it works then I think it's a good way of looking at our relationship with the Spirit.  Like you said, different things work for different people and it seems like part of this life is figuring out what works for us, and also being able to present different options to people so they can figure out what works for them too.  One of the things that I have sometimes struggled with in the church is how different doctrines or practices are presented as 'the' way to do something.  I like it when our experiences in the gospel are personal and not just institutional.

When I asked the question I wasn't really thinking about our ability to perceive revelation at all, but I also didn't clarify much in my OP because I was fine with however posters interpreted the question. 

Speaking for myself, I was thinking more about whether or not our biases cause us to set up gods that are just like ourselves.  Does God always agree with me?  If I don't like a specific teaching do I automatically assume that the person teaching it is wrong or are am I sincerely open to myself being wrong and God actually agreeing with the person I disagree with? 

(that's obviously a simplistic way of articulating it but it's the jist of where my mind was)

If God and I never disagree, then I see that as a red flag, since I'm a fallen mortal and God is....God.  So I started to wonder, where have I disagreed with God?  If I couldn't think of anything, then (for me) that was a sign that I had gone off the track somewhere and needed to redirect some things.

And it made me wonder if others had had similar experiences, where they had real world examples of the differences between their knowledge and reasoning, and God's knowledge and reasoning.

That makes a lot of sense. You're right, I kind of went off in the wrong direction there.   It's a weird fact to try to reconcile that we really do each kind of have our own God. Even each have our own church. In the sense that we have our own unique understanding of what those things are and whatnot. At any rate, we each come up with our own unique set of bases for morality and decision-making, which is sort of what we're practically talking about when we talk about God and church. 

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, bluebell said:

This is mostly just my curious mind wondering about random stuff.  I don't have any agenda.  The question popped into my mind when someone was speaking yesterday in conference (I don't remember who it was, we were driving back from Utah and were listening in the car) about the exclusivity of worship and how we don't have any other gods before God, even ourselves.

It made me wonder, how often are we are own gods without even noticing?

Has the Spirit ever told me to do something that I disagreed with? Yes, sort of. But it's been more along the lines of being directed by the Spirit to do or say things that I had no initial intention of doing.

Started when I met my very first Mormon. I was pathologically shy when I was 14, and walking home from school one day I saw another boy walking on the other side of the street. Normally, I would have slowed my walking until he was further ahead of me before resuming normal speed. Instead, I crossed the street in order to talk with him. Absolutely bonkers behavior. Within 3 minutes I learned he was a Mormon, and this caught my interest. A year later I was baptized.

Another time years later, and this might be closer to your question, I had decided not to do a particular thing, and thought I should pray about it. Instead of any kind of confirmation, I got a "stupor of thought." I gathered from this that I needed to do it. Which I did, and it turned out to be the right thing to do. 

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I have absolutely no idea why I was supposed to go to law school.

Because I have always been interested in the law, and used to go to the state law library to read court decisions for fun, I once thought about taking training to get into paralegal work. I prayed about it, and got an emphatic No.

I still love to read court decisions. 

[SkyRock]

I have had extremely clear divine inspiration many times in my life.  Often it was the opposite of what I wanted. I followed the guidance and I often ended up in difficult trials.  

It got so bad that I remember telling someone a decade ago that I didn't want anymore inspiration, because it just kept pushing me into increased trials.  Sure, I gained enormously through overcoming the trials, but I was exhausted.  The person asked me "What if the next time it isn't as difficult?"

A few years later I had a major decision and went to the temple and prayed for inspiration.  Once again I received an answer I was not expecting and didn't want. I followed it anyway and it turned out to be one of the best things ever. 

I still have received the answer too many times "All will be well in the end and endure" when I wanted an immediate answer.  I hate that answer.  I hate enduring for decades, wanting "something".

I have seen too many other miracles and revelations.  I just get the ones I want and feel I need.  I just continue to trust in the Lord and exercise faith.  Maybe that is why I don't get those things I think I need. 

[Stargazer]

13 hours ago, Chum said:

I wasn't often right about the source of messaging. Like ever.  I eventually figured out that the sensory apparatus that the spirit impresses upon - it is not well developed in me. There wasn't a place for those feelings to land. 
The upshot is I never had peaceful impressions from the temple or sacrament or ordinances or anything else. Irrespective of worthiness. 

Same thing for Church leaders. I mean, I could piratically see and feel the mantle resting on a bishop. I really did appreciate what that meant. But the feelings were neutral. Maybe I felt spiritual pressure but it wasn't positive or negative. 

Late in life I did some fairly intense internal work. After that I had some capacity to feel some new things. Well, life was in survival mode another decade so once that passed - then I could feel some things. 

I think of a scene from The Crown, a Netflix series about the life of Queen Elizabeth II. In this scene, she has requested that Prime Minister Harold Wilson come to her, because she has a bone to pick with him. The background is that there had been a mine-related disaster in Aberfan, Wales, where a school was destroyed by a slag-heap avalanche, killing 144, mostly children. Her advisors had suggested she not come immediately to visit the site because her visit would cause distraction during the time responders were still dealing with the disaster. This delay in visiting (though she had sent her husband, Prince Phillip, immediately after the disaster) caused some severe grumbling that found its way into the news media. She did visit nine days after the tragedy. Elizabeth was known to be very stoic, and in this scene she confides in Mr. Wilson that it has been a problem for her. Whether this meeting, as portrayed, actually occurred is unknown. But it does seem possible. Both actors were complimented on how well they portrayed their characters. Perhaps you can gain something for yourself in this.

 

[Stargazer]

9 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Yes.

Sometimes I followed it. Sometimes not. Results were very mixed.

Mixtures, yes. Long time ago when I was still young and dumb (now I am old, sometimes am still dumb) I did something I should not have done. I had a choice between two alternatives in dealing with it. I prayed about it, and took the path the Spirit told me to take. It led me into the worst four years of my life. But I later realized that I was required to take that path because I had made my bed and would have to lie in it. It was a severe lesson in some respects, but if I had not taken it, my life would not have become as complete as it has become. 

[bluebell]

10 hours ago, cujo22 said:

That makes a lot of sense. You're right, I kind of went off in the wrong direction there.   It's a weird fact to try to reconcile that we really do each kind of have our own God. Even each have our own church. In the sense that we have our own unique understanding of what those things are and whatnot. At any rate, we each come up with our own unique set of bases for morality and decision-making, which is sort of what we're practically talking about when we talk about God and church. 

A different direction, definitely, but not a wrong one.   

[JVW]

I would say that this has happened to me many times. The most obvious example of this in my life is the time that God told me to "forgive the government". I had never before considered the possibility of a group of people needing forgiveness, and I would argue that "the government" is more like a nebulous entity that is widely open for interpretation on what it means. Even more surprising to me was considering the thought of forgiving "someone" with whom I don't have a choice of being in a relationship with, who I will be in a relationship with the rest of my life, and who perpetually abuses me with taxes on taxes on taxes. In addition to that, because the idea had never occurred to me, I had no idea how to forgive "someone" who didn't even know I exists, didn't know how they were hurting me, and would never apologize. So ... yeah ... even without going into "how did I know this was from God" which I'm not going to go into here, the context of the situation and where my mind was definitely indicates that the source of the idea was not internal.

[Rain]

I don't think the Spirit has ever told me something I disagreed with.  I don't think that is a red flag in and of itself.  I think it might have more to do with a definition of "disagree" and how one handles things with God. There have been times I didn't want to do what the Spirit said and times when I didn't like what the Spirit said, but that doesn't mean I disagreed with the Spirit. Disagreeing with the Spirit means "nope, you're wrong.  This is the way it is."

Now there was one time I said, "No way I'm not going to do that", but was open rebellion, not disagreement.  And there have been other times I've been rebellious though not so open about it with Him. Also, like I said in your other thread, there were times I distrusted him, but again not so much disagreement, but I can see where they might be related. 

I just feel God knows so much more than me so how can I disagree with him? If I think something is red and he tells me it is purple then it's time to figure out where those blue tones are that He sees and I don't.

[The Nehor]

Spirit told me to break one of the commandments once. I went ahead and did it. Still not sure what that was potentially about.

Also when I had to buy temple clothes after being called as a temple worker I was a broke college student. I told God He would have to cover it and put it on my credit card. The next day I won $200 from a scratch off lottery ticket my boss gave me. I have always wanted to use this one in a sacrament meeting talk just to see if the bishop will ask me to sit down.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Spirit told me to break one of the commandments once. I went ahead and did it. Still not sure what that was potentially about.

Also when I had to buy temple clothes after being called as a temple worker I was a broke college student. I told God He would have to cover it and put it on my credit card. The next day I won $200 from a scratch off lottery ticket my boss gave me. I have always wanted to use this one in a sacrament meeting talk just to see if the bishop will ask me to sit down.

Reminds me of how Dad gave my oldest brother when he was a young kid a coin to play the slot machine to teach him it was throwing away money.  Of course he won (the “of course” is because no one would remember and repeat the story if he had lost).

[bluebell]

5 hours ago, Rain said:

I don't think the Spirit has ever told me something I disagreed with.  I don't think that is a red flag in and of itself.  I think it might have more to do with a definition of "disagree" and how one handles things with God. There have been times I didn't want to do what the Spirit said and times when I didn't like what the Spirit said, but that doesn't mean I disagreed with the Spirit. Disagreeing with the Spirit means "nope, you're wrong.  This is the way it is."

Now there was one time I said, "No way I'm not going to do that", but was open rebellion, not disagreement.  And there have been other times I've been rebellious though not so open about it with Him. Also, like I said in your other thread, there were times I distrusted him, but again not so much disagreement, but I can see where they might be related. 

I just feel God knows so much more than me so how can I disagree with him? If I think something is red and he tells me it is purple then it's time to figure out where those blue tones are that He sees and I don't.

That makes a lot of sense.

When I asked the question in the OP, I wasn't really thinking about personal revelation, but more about God telling us something through another authoritative source, like a prophet or the scriptures.  But It's equally valid to think of it in terms of revelation.  And I like people's take on that.

I agree it doesn't make much sense to disagree with God when we are certain the information is coming from Him.

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Spirit told me to break one of the commandments once. I went ahead and did it. Still not sure what that was potentially about.

Also when I had to buy temple clothes after being called as a temple worker I was a broke college student. I told God He would have to cover it and put it on my credit card. The next day I won $200 from a scratch off lottery ticket my boss gave me. I have always wanted to use this one in a sacrament meeting talk just to see if the bishop will ask me to sit down.

My dad stood at the pulpit as a member of the bishopric once and talked about how amazing a popular rated R movie was while bearing his testimony.  My mom thought it was hilarious.  He didn't even realize what he was doing.

[Senator]

19 hours ago, bluebell said:

 

I agree it doesn't make much sense to disagree with God when we are certain the information is coming from Him.

I’m just amazed/jealous, that you all have the ability to discern with certainty what the spirit is, and that it comes from God. I’m still trying to figure that out.