How does reverence help me receive revelation?
I have absolutely loved teaching our Youth Sunday School class. I wanted to share some of the ways I made this lesson a little more personalized for our class, and to hopefully help you fellow teachers out there! I always love a good lesson plan!
Bee reverent so you can receive revelation!
I started with asking what reverence meant to them. Which lead into how reverence is profound respect and love. We then read the definition of reverence in True to the Faith. When we are reverent, we show our love for God and are better able to receive personal revelation.
How awesome is it that no message appears in the scriptures more times, and in more ways than, "Ask, and ye shall receive." We can always pray to our Heavenly Father and ask. He will answer! We then read D&C 8: 2-3. And discussed how revelation is communication from God to His children and how it comes in many different ways. I asked the youth what ways they have heard of people receiving revelation. Most revelation comes through the whisperings of the Holy Ghost.
"This spiritual communication comes into the mind, it comes more as a feeling, an impression, than simply a thought." -Boyd K. Packer
I thought about reading Revelation in True to the Faith as well, but didn't have time. We read Helaman 5: 30. That is why it is so important that we keep the Spirit with us because then we will always be able to hear the still small voice of the Holy Ghost. You could even discuss descriptive words of the Holy Ghost.
We then talked about how the world is getting increasingly noisier. With TV, radio, music, and the internet we live in a day that there is always something going on and something you can hear, watch or read. If we don't make time to be reverent and connect with our Father in Heaven our personal revelation can be blocked.
I love this quote from Boyd K. Packer that says, "The first order issued by a commander mounting a military invasion is the jamming of the channels of communication of those he intends to conquer. Irreverence suits the purposes of the adversary by obstructing the delicate channels of revelation in both mind and spirit."
So to make sure we keep the channels of communication open Elder Bruce R. McConkie said we can do these 3 things.
1. Search the scriptures.
2. Keep the commandments.
3. Ask in faith.
When we add reverence to these 3 things we can expect a change in our spiritual growth, knowledge, and peace. This quote from Joseph B. Wirthlin also goes along with this, "If we configure our hearts and minds properly with faith, disciplined obedience, prayer, and scripture study, we can access the network of divine and eternal truths. We can receive the teachings and counsel of God's prophet, opening to us knowledge and revelation from our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ."
We also talked about the Manti Pageant and Joseph Smith's story focusing on revelation. He gave us a great example of how we can prepare to receive revelation.
We briefly discussed the other things mentioned in the lesson that can help us maintain and show reverence, including using reverential words in our prayers, singing along with all hymns and staying reverent at church. We talked about how we could take notes, not look at phones, participate and listen carefully to lessons too!
"While we may not see an immediate, miraculous transformation, as surely as the Lord lives, a quiet one will take place. The spiritual power in the lives of each member and in the Church will increase. The Lord will pour out his Spirit upon us more abundantly. We will be less troubled, less confused. We will find revealed answers to personal and family problems without all the counseling which we seem now to need." -Boyd K. Packer
Now onto the cute stuff! If you know me, you KNOW I always need to add a special touch to the lesson. Going along with "Bee"-ing reverent I ran with the bee theme. To start I wrote on the board Bee reverent so you can receive revelation with a little bee. I wanted to give the class a little take home treat so Dallin and I ran to about every chocolate store I could think of to find foil wrapped bees. Rumor has it Cummings have them, but we were in Sandy for the day so we went to Chocolate Cottage. If you are in the area they have the best chocolate covered grapes! Luckily Chocolate Cottage had some chocolate bees. With a quick switch of ribbons they were instantly better!
Since I go a little overboard sometimes I also made some peanut butter bees they could snack on in class. I just followed my
peanut butter ball recipe, I was a little bit more careful with the stripes by using a Ziploc bag for the chocolate, added some sliced almonds for wings and mini chocolate chips for the eyes and stingers. If you wanted to go the extra mile you could roll and form them into little almost football shapes so they look even more like bees, but I went the easier route with a small cookie scoop. The youth took some home to their families too since we had so many!
Lastly I gave a little print out to remind them about this lesson. If you're interested you can find the printable down below.
I used bright yellow paper to go with the black and yellow bee theme I was going for but you could really use any color or even just white!
If you are interested in knowing which general conference talks I researched and used in this lesson I will list them with the links down below. Even if you aren't planning a lesson they make for a great read!
Thanks for stopping by!
