Nurturing a Spirit-Guided Life: Trusting Inner Wisdom for Yourself and Your Children
As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) and a father of five, if there was one enduring gift I could impart to my children, it would be the profound ability to listen to and discern the Spirit in their lives. It's the capacity to embrace that perfect, innate teacher—not with apprehension, hesitation, or resistance, but with a vibrant sense of excitement, clarity, and unshakeable confidence.
It’s one thing to teach our children about obedience, a concept we encounter in so many areas of life. It’s quite another for them to meaningfully grasp the transformative lessons embedded within that obedience. When commandments and guiding principles are understood in their true power, faith isn't just a concept; it's a lived experience. And in those moments when understanding feels just out of reach, an authentic faith can blossom, deepening their trust in a loving Heavenly Father. Armed with this inner compass, they’d be equipped to apply life’s lessons across all situations, identify falsehoods with greater ease, recognize genuine wisdom, and navigate the unknown not with fear, but with courage.
Beyond Obedience: Cultivating Deep Spiritual Insight
Think of the immense time and energy we, as parents and leaders, dedicate to teaching what it means to be obedient—in our homes, at church, in schools, and workplaces—and what it means to be loving in our relationships. While these lessons in obedience are undeniably crucial for our spiritual growth, I often wonder, as both a clinician and a parent, if we inadvertently bypass precious opportunities to truly enable our children and loved ones. In our understandable rush, or the busyness of the moment, do we sometimes default to demanding compliance, rather than patiently establishing a pattern of genuine spiritual insight and experiential learning?
Imagine this: you have a teenage son. He’s visibly distracted, frustrated, exhausted, and utterly unable to focus on his homework. In your hope to instill obedience, responsibility, and simply get that assignment finished, you might find yourself sounding like the proverbial broken record. This dynamic, as I’ve seen countless times in my therapy practice, often only aggravates both child and parent, rarely leading to success. It can even sow seeds of resentment, create emotional distance, and leave everyone feeling like a failure. In these moments, the Spirit, that gentle guide we so desire for our children, can feel conspicuously absent.
What if, sometimes, the most profound act of teaching is to allow them to fail? This is, unfortunately, one of the most challenging lessons for us as parents to embrace.
“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” (John 14:26, KJV) [1]
The Parent's Own Journey: Worthiness, Control, and Stepping Back
In these difficult moments, we as parents often wrestle with our own internal narratives about what it means to be a "good" father or mother. Our child's successes and failures can feel like a direct reflection of our parenting skills, or even our personal worthiness. We might be driven by an overwhelming need to teach responsibility, at any cost.
But I've learned—both through my clinical work helping families navigate parenting challenges and through profound personal experiences—that sometimes, taking ourselves, our anxieties, and our timelines out of the equation can be the most effective, and indeed loving, approach of all. This lesson was etched into my heart many times on my mission, and countless times since.
A Missionary's Misjudgment: The Humility of Getting Out of the Spirit's Way
One of the pivotal mistakes I made as a young missionary was the earnest but misguided belief that I had all the answers, and that it was my personal responsibility to convert individuals. I loved the gospel of Jesus Christ with my whole being and possessed a deep testimony of its teachings. It was an absolute joy and burning passion of mine to share all that I had learned, hoping to teach investigators into conversion. I thought I had every answer and knew the "best" way to present the message. It was my calling, my responsibility.
Of course, I intellectually understood it was the Spirit that converted. Yet, I also carried the subtle belief that my ability as a missionary directly reflected on my capacity to bring individuals to the gospel. Fortunately, the Savior’s atoning sacrifice is expansive enough to cover our naïve and incorrect beliefs, and through that profound mercy, I was taught a principle I would never forget—a lesson in humility and trust that informs my work with those navigating faith transitions even today.
We were teaching a part-member family. Jeff, the husband and father, was the only one not a member of the Church. For years, dedicated missionaries had visited and taught him. Jeff was a genuinely good man, with a heart of gold. By the time I met him, he’d received the lessons so many times I’m confident he could have taught them to us. Nonetheless, in my youthful zeal, I felt it was my sacred duty to convert Jeff. I would teach him in a way no missionary had before!
Needless to say, by the end of our meticulously planned discussions, no commitment for baptism was made. My companion and I struggled. We fasted and prayed. We re-taught, and re-taught, and re-taught the principles WE believed he needed to hear. Nothing.
Teaching Jeff, I regret to admit, was becoming deeply frustrating. Then, we had what we thought was a brilliant idea. My companion and I had become familiar with a wonderful lecture series on the Prophet Joseph Smith by the great scholar Truman G. Madsen. (For those interested, some of his works are often available through BYU Speeches or Deseret Book). Surely, we thought, no one could listen to this great scholar and not be converted! We brought these recordings to Jeff and structured our lessons around them. One night, during a lecture we felt was particularly moving and powerful, Jeff appeared distracted and uninterested. This was unlike him; he was always engaged. I believe he even asked for a break in the lesson. This was difficult for me, and I acutely questioned my ability to bring him the gospel message.
It was at least a month later when Jeff invited us back, not for a lesson, but with news. When we arrived, he and his family announced that he was going to be baptized. He explained that earlier that week, he’d escaped to the bathroom from the morning hustle and noise as his family was getting ready for work and school. There, in that quiet, unexpected moment, he felt a distinct need to pray. As he prayed, the Spirit filled his heart and mind, teaching him what he needed. He knew it was time to be baptized.
I was both thrilled and profoundly humbled. As he shared his sacred spiritual experience, I realized my prayers and fasts were being answered—just not in the way I had anticipated or tried to orchestrate. My prayers had been focused on finding ways for me to convert Jeff. In that moment, it was powerfully clear: I had very little to do with his actual conversion.
In fact, I might have been getting in the way of the spiritual lessons that needed to be taught directly to Jeff by the Spirit. My fear, my inflated sense of missionary responsibility, and the flawed way I was measuring success were all distracting from the true spiritual lesson. Sometimes, the most responsible, most loving thing we can do is simply get out of the way. Jeff's conversion was deep, personal, and entirely between him and the Lord. He has been a faithful member ever since and, last I heard, was serving as a bishop in Arizona.
The Guiding Whisper: Recognizing the Spirit's Touch
The Prophet Joseph Smith offered this direction to Brigham Young:
"Tell the people to be humble and faithful, and be sure to keep the spirit of the Lord and it will lead them right. Be careful and not turn away the small still voice; it will teach you what to do and where to go; it will yield the fruits of the kingdom. Tell the brethren to keep their hearts open to conviction, so that when the Holy Ghost comes to them, their hearts will be ready to receive it. They can tell the Spirit of the Lord from all other spirits; it will whisper peace and joy to their souls; it will take malice, hatred, strife and all evil from their hearts; and their whole desire will be to do good, bring forth righteousness and build up the kingdom of God.” (23 February 1847, Manuscript History of Brigham Young: 1846–1847, ed. Elden J. Watson (Salt Lake City: Elden Jay Watson, 1971), 529) [2]
This "small still voice" is a central theme in how many experience divine guidance, a concept also explored in various contemplative traditions. For those interested in the psychological aspects of intuition and inner guidance, resources like the American Psychological Association often publish articles on mindfulness and intuitive decision-making.
Empowering Our Children: The Gift of Struggle and Self-Discovery
I often wonder how frequently we, as well-meaning parents, get in the way of the spiritual lessons our children are meant to learn firsthand. As a parent, I feel a profound duty to teach my children how to be successful, resilient, and good. But it is equally important that after we have adequately instructed them, we provide them with the opportunity to struggle, to question, and yes, even to fail.
It is often better that their own experiences in their moments of failure become their guide, rather than our repetitive parental reminders. Additionally, there is immense power in our children discovering that they can succeed on their own, that they can find their own answers. In both failure and success, we can lovingly remind them and provide an example of how to seek out answers with the Spirit. This fosters an internal locus of control and spiritual self-efficacy, concepts vital for healthy adult development, which you can read more about from sources like Psychology Today.
Seeking answers is a process; it can be nuanced and even time-consuming, especially for those of us who, like myself, are neurodivergent and may process information differently. But like Jeff, I have learned the immense value of stepping out of the "hustle and noise" to consciously seek peace and guidance from the Spirit.
Perhaps, instead of solely fasting and praying about how we can teach our children better, we can shift our focus. We can fast and pray to find and recognize opportunities for our children to learn directly from the Spirit, to cultivate their own sacred, spirit-guided life. This is an act of profound trust, not only in them but in the divine process itself.
References:
[1] John 14:26, King James Version. (Consider linking to an online scripture resource if desired, e.g., https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/john/14.26?lang=eng#p26)
[2] Manuscript History of Brigham Young: 1846–1847, ed. Elden J. Watson (Salt Lake City: Elden Jay Watson, 1971), 529.
