Ep. 4 – The Holy Ghost from A to Z: Brings *Abundance* to Your Life

Discover how the Holy Ghost can bring abundance to your life, no matter where you are on the spiritual spectrum right now.

Get ready for the next episode by reading Atomic Habits by James Clear!

Outline

• The Holy Ghost from A to Z: What the Spirit Can Do for You (by Liz Kazandzhy) will be published in June
• Quote from chapter A – Brings *Abundance* to Your Life
  • Do you feel like you’re in a spiritual rut right now? Perhaps you’re on spiritual “cruise control,” going through the motions but without seeing much impact from them. Or you may feel like the spiritual parts of your life are like a quick “P.S.” at the end of a letter that is otherwise full of temporal concerns. If this is the case, try seeking out an added measure of the Spirit, for He can bring an abundance of blessings into your life.
  • When we sprinkle spiritual moments throughout our day, the Spirit can be with us more often
  • The Holy Ghost can fill us with “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance” (Galatians 5:22), which makes for a truly abundant life
• Takeaway
  • Imagine each day as a letter (as in a note), and mentally highlight the spiritual parts of your most recent letters
  • Decide on one spiritual thing you can add to tomorrow’s letter, and then do it
• Next episode: Atomic Habits: By Small and Simple Things Are Great Things Brought to Pass

Transcript

I’m Liz Kazandzhy, and you’re listening to the cozy little podcast “Latter-day Saint Book Nook,” where we talk about books from a gospel perspective. Whether fiction or nonfiction, religious or not, great books are like wells of wisdom just waiting to be drawn from, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. So if you love books, and you love the gospel of Jesus Christ, you’re in the right place. Come and learn from the best books to help you live your best life!

Hey everybody! I hope you’re having a great week, and if not, I hope I can help make it a little better. In today’s episode, we get to talk about the first chapter in my book The Holy Ghost from A to Z: What the Spirit Can Do for You, which comes out in June. And, since the 26 chapters are literally A to Z, today’s topic is the A chapter, which talks about how the Holy Ghost can bring abundance to your life.

So yeah, just so you know, the chapters don’t all actually start with the letters. It’s just that the main idea of the chapter starts with that specific letter. That way, when you’re done with the book, you can kind of look back and think about the chapters like, “Okay, D—direction … E—encouragement … F—forgiveness,” and so on. And hopefully that’ll help you remember how the Spirit can help you.

Alright, so let’s talk about abundance. One of the most well-known uses of this word is in John 10:10, when the Savior says, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” And isn’t that just a great image—not just living but living abundantly. Now, some people might think about money and possessions when they hear that, but President Monson once described it as “a life filled with an abundance of success, goodness, and blessings.”

And personally, I love that this is the first chapter of the book, because it’s like right away you learn that wherever you are on the spiritual spectrum—whether you’re doing great or you’re struggling—the Spirit can help lift you higher. And that’s because, as Robert Millet wrote, His companionship is the “grand key to genuine success in this life, a key that opens the door to peace and happiness in this world and eternal glory in the world to come.”

[2:16]

Quote from the A chapter

Alright, well let me pull a quote from this chapter and read it to you. Here it is:

Do you feel like you’re in a spiritual rut right now?

Perhaps you’re on spiritual “cruise control,” going through the motions but without seeing much impact from them. Or you may feel like the spiritual parts of your life are like a quick “P.S.” at the end of a letter that is otherwise full of temporal concerns.

If this is the case, try seeking out an added measure of the Spirit, for He can bring an abundance of blessings into your life.

I really like the analogy of a letter with a P.S. at the end of it. (And by letter I obviously mean like a message on a piece of paper and not a letter of the alphabet.) Anyway, I think it’s a great metaphor because if you imagine each of your days as a letter, is there spirituality sprinkled throughout it, from beginning to end, or is the gospel just something you think about once you get through all the other stuff in your life? Because I know that I’ve felt that way. It’s like I’ll wrap up my day with scripture study and a prayer and then realize that my day was spent hardly thinking about the gospel.

But when I start to include those spiritual moments throughout my day—by saying a meaningful morning prayer, teaching my kids something from the scriptures, or even just thinking about the gospel—my life is just so much better, so much more fulfilling. And it’s all because of the Spirit. Because when you do those little things that invite Him into your life, and you avoid those little things that drive Him away, it allows Him to just fill your life with joy. And not just joy, but as Galatians 5 says, “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, [and] temperance.” And that makes for an abundant life.

[4:06]

This Week’s Takeaway

So, here’s this week’s takeaway. Imagine each day as a letter—it can be hand-written or typed, whatever you’d like, but just have that image in your mind. And now reflect on the last few days and mentally highlight the spiritual parts in those letters. This is meant to help you kind of gauge where you’re at spiritually right now. And here’s the most important part of the takeaway: decide on one spiritual thing you can add to tomorrow’s letter, and then do it.

And I say just one because it’s doable—I mean, we’ve all got to start somewhere. Later you can keep adding spiritual things to your letters—and perhaps taking some unneeded temporal things out—until your life feels balanced. And I know that God will bless your efforts with an added measure of the Spirit, who can bring an abundance of blessings into your life.

Well, that’s all for today’s little episode. And if you’re listening to this, thank you. Thank you for caring enough about spiritual things to include this podcast in the letter of your day. And thank you for supporting me. I hope you have a wonderful week!

Thanks for listening to Latter-day Saint Book Nook, hosted by Liz Kazandzhy! If you enjoyed this episode and you’d like to support the podcast, please share it with others, post about it on social media, or leave a rating and review. You can also visit ldsbooknook.com to stay up to date with me and the podcast. Thanks again, and I’ll talk to you next time!