Life can often feel like a constant battle to stay afloat. Anxieties weigh heavily on our modern minds with work schedules, family responsibilities, school, relationships, finances, unfulfilled desires or needs, and occasionally mental or physical disabilities. It can all feel so overwhelming, especially when we don’t live in a very hope-promoting world. Even if we know the truths and principles of the gospel apply to us, we don’t always feel the hope that ought to accompany that knowledge. God’s promises, and God himself, can sometimes feel inaccessible or distant from us. How do we bridge this gap and really feel that trust in God? The answer I’ve come to is this: to trust Him, we need to know who He is. When we know the character of God, our trust in God and our hope in His promises naturally increases. With this in mind, I have compiled some of the most influential ways I have come to know and love the character of God. 

First, foremost, and most personal, is prayer. I firmly believe that through prayer, we can connect with the Lord as closely as we could if we were actually in His presence. We can and should be very personal in our private prayers as doing so makes us feel closer to Him. It’s very natural with friends and family that the more time we spend talking with someone, the less we put up a front and the more we know and understand them. So doesn’t it make sense that the more time we spend with God, the more intimate our relationship with Him will be? Something that has struck me about prayer recently is how often we are told to never stop praying. Here are a few examples. Alma 37:36 says “Yea, and cry unto God for all thy support… yea, let all thy thoughts be directed unto the Lord; yea, let the affections of thy heart be placed upon the Lord forever. Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good”. Alma 26:22 “Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance,” 3 Nephi 20:1 “And it came to pass that [Jesus] commanded the multitude that they should cease to pray, and also his disciples. And he commanded them that they should not cease to pray in their hearts.” D&C 10:5 “Pray always, that you may come off conqueror; yea, that you may conquer Satan, and that you may escape the hands of the servants of Satan that do uphold his work.” 3 Nephi 18:15 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, ye must watch and pray always, lest ye be tempted by the devil, and ye be led away captive by him.” Alma 13:28 “…humble yourselves before the Lord, and call on his holy name, and watch and pray continually, that ye may not be tempted above that which ye can bear,” Mosiah 26:39 “And they did admonish their brethren; and they were also admonished… being commanded of God to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all things.” Alma 34:18-27 “Yea, cry unto him for mercy; for he is mighty to save. Yea, humble yourselves, and continue in prayer unto him. Cry unto him when ye are in your fields, yea, over all your flocks. Cry unto him in your houses, yea, over all your household, both morning, mid-day, and evening. Yea, cry unto him against the power of your enemies. Yea, cry unto him against the devil, who is an enemy to all righteousness. Cry unto him over the crops of your fields, that ye may prosper in them. Cry over the flocks of your fields, that they may increase. But this is not all; ye must pour out your souls in your closets, and your secret places, and in your wilderness. Yea, and when you do not cry unto the Lord, let your hearts be full, drawn out in prayer unto him continually for your welfare, and also for the welfare of those who are around you.” It is clear this concept is often repeated as both an admonition and a commandment. I love the idea that we should let all of our thoughts be directed unto the Lord, so a new goal I have set is to really take the commandment to pray continually to heart. By keeping the conversation going with God constantly, I have noticed that what I do and how I think have changed. When I pray continually, I repent and change more often, I express gratitude more often, I stop bad thoughts about myself and others faster, I feel a response from God more frequently, and I truly feel like I am getting to know Christ better. It can be helpful to visualize Christ literally being beside you as you continue your prayer throughout the day. When I was a child in primary, we would sing the song “If the Savior Stood Beside Me”. The words of that song really struck my eight-year-old mind and heart. The lyrics are as follows, 

As I pondered the questions posed in the song, I realized that Jesus really was and is always beside me. I remember after hearing this song as a child, I would try to imagine Him following me around all the time. When we are praying constantly, recognizing the fact that God is there with us in the moment and not some unknown, distant father figure, we are strengthened to make better decisions and think better thoughts. I might be thinking “I can never do things right” and I can almost hear the response “Shannon, you know that’s not true. You’re going to be okay”. Or I might be thinking “they are so annoying” and then I remember that God is listening so I ask myself, “is that what you would want to say in your prayer? Maybe ask for charity instead.” I am very quickly convicted by my conscience when I remember who is listening to me; and when I get a response from God through the Spirit, it’s like having a voice of reason to filter my thoughts. Getting to know Him better in this way has calmed my anxieties and lifted my spirits. 

The second way I have found to come to know God better is through studying the life of Jesus Christ. What better way to come to know who God is than through studying the life of His Son? Christ said in John 14:7-9, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him… he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” and in John 5:19 “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” We can trust Christ to be a clear reflection of God the Father. From studying Christ’s life in the New Testament I have learned much about the character of God. God sees and knows us as individuals like how Christ saw the woman anointing His feet when his apostles only saw a sinner. God is humble and has a deep respect for stewardship and authority, like how Christ was humble and obedient to His mother and her stewardship when she requested He turn the water to wine. God wants to help and bless us like how Christ wanted to heal and feed those who followed Him. God wants us to help each other like how Christ admonished and begged so many times for His followers to “be one”. God will always respect our agency like how Christ respected the agency of those disciples who decided to leave, and “walked no more with him” (John 6:66). Learning about God through Christ’s life opens an abundance of spiritual understanding. One of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon is 1 Nephi 11. In this chapter Nephi is shown the vision of the tree of life and is given a commentary from the Spirit of the Lord. What I love about this chapter is that in order to teach Nephi the meaning of the vision of the tree of life, the Spirit shows him various scenes from the life of Jesus Christ. Nephi is shown the nativity, baptism, ministry, and death of Christ. This chapter shows us that if we want to better understand something, anything, we should look to the life of Christ. Another way I have found which really shows me who God is through the life of Christ is watching the series “The Chosen” from VidAngel. It is a fantastic series adaptation of the New Testament and really brings to life the character of Christ and how He loves us. Something about studying Christ, His life and Atonement, really touches our hearts and gives us a fuller desire to change. Knowing who God is through studying the life of Christ gives us hope and changes our hearts in a way that makes us trust in Him more frequently and easily.

A third way we can come to know who God is is by looking at the questions Christ asks. Have you ever been asked a question that just shook you to the core? Or one that has stuck with you throughout your life? All the best teachers know how to ask guiding questions that engage and draw their students in. Christ is the master teacher and therefore the master at asking powerful and occasionally self-convicting questions. I recently listened to an audio recording of a book titled “What Seek Ye?” by S. Michael Wilcox. This has become one of my favorite gospel centered books because of its simple and insightful highlighting of the questions Christ asks in the New Testament. The questions that Christ asks have played a huge part in bringing me closer to Him. I can really feel Jesus turning His head from the pages of the New Testament, looking into mine, and asking me questions that stir my soul. Wilcox points out twenty-four of these questions in his book. Some of my favorites include “Why trouble ye her?”, “What is that to thee?”, “Sleepest thou?”, “Will ye also go away?”, “ Why are ye so fearful?”, and “Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye?” These questions are ones that I often hear the Spirit repeat in response to my thoughts and prayers. They give me a focus for self-improvement and a desire to draw closer to Christ on a level that I don’t get when I am the questioner and God the answerer. These questions invite us to do better and be better, which naturally helps us come to know who God is and our relationship to Him. Whenever I am tempted to fire off an indignant comment, I can hear Christ say to me, “why trouble ye [them]?” and I quickly see that I really don’t need to say that comment, and I should replace it with something more kind and compassionate. Through this, I learn about God through the words of Christ and how I am compelled to change when I recall them.

Fourth, we can learn who God is through studying the Doctrine and Covenants. The Doctrine and Covenants is an incredible and unique insight into the character of God, who He is, how He interacts with His children, how He thinks, and why He does what He does. The Doctrine and Covenants answers so many questions about “why?”, and the way I see it, if we can start to see patterns in God’s explanations of “why”, then we can apply those patterns to our lives and come to know the very nature of God and His purposes. D&C is unique because, unlike any other canonized scripture, God is speaking through Christ for almost the whole of it. There are 138 sections, 89% of them, in one way or another, begin with “revelation given through Joseph Smith the prophet”. Since these are revelations, Christ is speaking in the first person, so I think it’s safe to say that God is speaking through Christ for approximately 89% of Doctrine and Covenants which is far more than we hear Him speak in the four gospels, especially after taking out any repetitions. The Doctrine and Covenants is also the most recent of the standard works and is therefore one of the easiest to understand. So, in order to search for God’s explanations of “why”, I decided to start going through Doctrine and Covenants searching for the words “cause” and “that”. This quickly became an interesting study. I have only gotten up to Section 70 and I have already found about 160 different examples of God explaining a “why”. Sometimes when I find a verse that says “that”, it can be read as either the start of an explanation of why or a description of extent. Here is an example where I choose to take it as an explanation of why, D&C 29:9 “I will burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, that wickedness shall not be upon the earth”. I read this as the Lord saying “there can’t be wickedness on the earth when I come, so I will have to burn all the bad” which can give us insight into questions like “why are there so many scary prophecies in the scriptures about the Second Coming?” Here is one that gave me insight into why God allows bad things to happen to good people, D&C 63:66 “These things remain to overcome through patience, that such may receive a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, otherwise, a greater condemnation.” This one gave me insight into God’s awareness of the resources of the earth and what we need as a society to accomplish His work, D&C 61:17 “I, the Lord, in the beginning cursed the land, even so in the last days have I blessed it, in its time, for the use of my saints, that they may partake the fatness thereof.” I loved this scripture as an insight into God’s purpose for marriage, 49:16-17 “Wherefore, it is lawful that he should have one wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, and all this that the earth might answer the end of its creation; and that it might be filled with the measure of man, according to his creation before the world was made.” There are so many things we can learn about who God is from D&C; however, something else I have learned from this study is that God doesn’t want us to know the “why” about everything yet so that there is room for faith and trust in Him. I learned this because the most common things God says when He gives an explanation for instructions in D&C is that something is or isn’t “expedient”, “needful”, or it does or doesn’t “behoove Him”. I have found that when God tells us to do something because it is “expedient in Him”, that’s His code for “you’ll understand later, just trust me and I will guide you one step at a time for now”. Besides something being “expedient”, there are three other “whys” that have really stuck out to me due to how often they are repeated. The first is to fulfill a promise or prophecy. This brings me a lot of comfort because it shows that God is extremely trustworthy with His promises. Second, God often gives certain knowledge or does a certain action because it was asked for by someone faithful. This gives me confidence that God cares about what I want and I can make a difference by asking God for my desires and for further knowledge. The third “why” that God repeats when he gives knowledge is so we will understand better. This shows me that he is accommodating. He can and will give you knowledge in your own language, speaking to your circumstances in every way. Studying all of these “whys” in D&C has taught me about who God is and how He works with His children. Knowing God in this way makes it much easier and more natural to trust in Him when life is difficult.

The fifth way I have found to better come to know God is one that is special to me, as it can be very personal. Number five is receiving priesthood blessings. Growing up in the home I did, I have a father who has always been willing to give me a blessing whether I am sick, stressed, or struggling to find direction in my life. My dad is excellent at channeling the Spirit and I can tell clearly when it’s him talking versus when it’s the Lord speaking through him. It’s especially clear when my dad has already taken his sleep medication but can still somehow form a sentence that’s not only coherent, but speaks to me and my circumstances! You know when you have known someone for so long that you can easily recognize their voice in writing? In writing, one’s voice isn’t recognizable by sound, but by the writer’s tone—the way that their perspective on life is woven into their writing, the way they write to you and your circumstances when they truly know you. In this context, being given a priesthood blessing from a worthy priesthood holder feels like being read a personal letter from your Heavenly Father. Something I realized over years of priesthood blessings is that when I am being given a blessing, not only can I tell it isn’t my dad’s voice, but I recognize the voice. This recognition is beyond the auditory, I recognize the voice from the scriptures, specifically the Doctrine and Covenants. This is the voice of the Lord. I would describe the Lord’s voice as one that is speaking from a higher perspective that can see the whole picture, yet cares about my in-the-moment worries. His voice feels like someone that understands my thoughts and actions, yet is strict, has high expectations, and holds me responsible to do my best. His voice gives me so much peace and comfort because of how calm and in control it feels. He gracefully and lovingly corrects me, directing me in the path of Christ. I will often use priesthood blessings as a method to confirm my personal spiritual promptings. Sometimes it can be extra helpful to hear an audible voice confirm revelation. Coming to know God through priesthood blessings has given me peace, insight into how He engages with His children, and increased trust in Him.

The final and sixth way I have found to come to know God and understand His ways is through remembering that He is our Father. We were given earthly families that parallel our heavenly family and are meant to teach us about our Heavenly Parents. We can look at both our experiences in the family and learn about our Heavenly Parents, as well as turn to our family experience when we have questions about God’s ways. For an example of the first case, when I was around four-years-old I went to the doctor’s office with my dad and brother so that my brother could get his kindergarten shots. While the doctor was giving him his vaccinations, my brother started crying. I saw that he was in pain and no one was stopping it! I was angry and exclaimed to the doctor, “Stop hurting my brother!” My dad and the doctor thought it was so sweet how much I cared about my brother, but they continued with the shots. They knew something that I didn’t: this pain would make my brother eligible for progression to kindergarten and protect my brother from infections that would be far worse than a shot. Looking back, I understand that my brother had to have that pain to progress, but in the moment I was furious and couldn’t believe my dad wasn’t stopping the doctor. So it is with us and our Heavenly Father, He understands our present circumstances in an eternal perspective and knows what will be best for us in the long run. For an example of the second case, where we turn to our family experiences to learn about God, we might wonder why God isn’t giving us the direction we ask for. In this scenario, we can ask ourselves why a father wouldn’t tell a child the best option and realize that the choice probably is not as important as the child thinks, or the father trusts the child to make the right decision. A father won’t tell a child which type of lollipop to get because it’s a trivial decision that won’t matter in the long run. When does a father tell a child exactly what to do in great detail? When the child is about to run into the street. When the child is about to grab a knife. When the child is in danger. So it is with God—He will give us strict directions when the danger is high. God has very strict commandments regarding the law of chastity because the danger is high: godhood is on the line. Yet God said it is not meet that He should command in all things (D&C 58:26). The family unit is one of the most effective teaching tools we have ever been given and God knew it would be. Learning about our Heavenly Father from the family unit is a truly enlightening experience.

Despite living in the chaos that is mortal life, as we come to know who God is and learn to trust in Him, we can have increased hope in His promises and see greater joy in life. I have come to know God by learning to “hear Him” through the methods I have discussed. The Lord has spoken to my heart as I have “let all [my] thoughts be directed unto [Him]”. My hope has increased as I have learned to recognize the voice of Christ through a study of His life, His questions, and the direction He gives in the Doctrine and Covenants. My personal connection to God has grown stronger as I have received priesthood blessings and come to understand how He works with me as one of His children. I know that God is the literal father of our spirits and we can learn so much from seeing our relationship to Him as parent and child rather than creator and created. I have learned through these methods that God knows us individually, better than we know ourselves. He is always with us, so He understands our struggles and longs to help us. He cares about the desires of your heart even more than you do. He can and will speak to you in your mind, in your heart, through the scriptures, through His modern-day prophets, and through priesthood blessings. Hear Him, know Him, trust Him, and I promise you will find the hope you seek.