Ep. 23 – The Holy Ghost from A to Z: *Inspires* You to Do Good

By following the promptings of the Spirit, we can help others in exactly the way they need, right when they need it.

Order The Holy Ghost from A to Z today!

Outline

• The Holy Ghost from A to Z is a religious nonfiction book written by Liz Kazandzhy and published in June 2022
• Quote from I – *Inspires* You to Do Good
  • Because the Lord “knoweth all things,” and “all things are present before [His] eyes,” He knows exactly who needs help, what kind of help they need, and when they need it. And because “we are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth,” we have the unique blessing of providing that help by following the promptings of the Spirit.
  • President Monson once said, “The sweetest experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it and later find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer or someone’s need. And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him.”
  • I share an experience of when a ministering sister served me in just the way I needed, even though I didn’t even know I needed it at the time
• Takeaway
  • Ponder these questions: “How does the Spirit usually speak to you? If He were to prompt you to reach out to someone else in service, what do you think that prompting would feel like to you?”
  • Pray every morning that God will lead you to someone you can help
• Learn more about The Holy Ghost from A to Z

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 everyone! Welcome back to the show. Today’s episode will be short and sweet, and once again we’ll be talking about the Holy Ghost. As a refresher, this comes from my book, The Holy Ghost from A to Z, and today’s quote is taken from the “I” chapter—about how the Spirit can inspire you to do good.

[0:52]

Quote from the I chapter

So here’s that quote:

Because the Lord “knoweth all things,” and “all things are present before [His] eyes,” He knows exactly who needs help, what kind of help they need, and when they need it. And because “we are the Lord’s hands here upon the earth,” we have the unique blessing of providing that help by following the promptings of the Spirit.

Now, when I was writing this chapter, I couldn’t help but think of President Thomas S. Monson, because there are so many stories of this happening with him—how he was able to bless so many lives by following the promptings he received. In fact, he once said, “The sweetest experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it and later find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer or someone’s need. And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him.”

Well, that got me thinking about when something like this has happened in my own life. And I remembered an experience I had several years ago when I had just had my second daughter. She was about 4 months old, and my older daughter was two at the time, and I was assigned a new ministering sister in the ward. She texted me and said something like, “Hey, how’s everything going after having your baby?” and of course she added the age-old question, “Is there anything you need?” And I replied, “Things are going pretty well. I can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll let you know!”

Now, there was nothing untruthful my response. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t ask for help because I was shy or prideful and didn’t want to ask for help. It’s because things were really pretty good, and I legitimately couldn’t think of anything I needed. But then, a little while later, she texted again and said, “Hey, I’m hosting a play date at my house tomorrow. Could I take your girls for a couple hours?” And I thought, “YES! That is exactly what I need.”

I mean, think about that for a moment—I didn’t even know what I needed, but God did, and He inspired that sister to offer that to me. And it was perfect—my kids had a great time at her house, and I was able to get a lot of important things done during that time. And that was just such a powerful lesson to me of how God can work through you to help others—even when you don’t know what they need, and even when they don’t know what they need. Because the Lord really does know all things, and He can give us that knowledge through the Spirit.

Also, another little lesson from this—if you ever want to serve a young mother … just take her children. Anywhere. For as long as you want. With her permission, of course, but the point is that being a mother of young children is like ridiculously hard, and offering to help watch the kids has got to be like the number one love language for moms with young kids. Or at least that’s the case with me!

[3:47]

This Week’s Takeaway

Anyway, this episode’s takeaway invitation is also taken directly from the book. Every chapter ends with a few “Liken to Yourself” questions to encourage pondering and action. So I just invite you to ponder these questions: “How does the Spirit usually speak to you? If He were to prompt you to reach out to someone else in service, what do you think that prompting would feel like to you?” And I guess I would also add to that the invitation to pray every morning that God will lead you to someone you can help. And I know that He will be happy to answer that prayer through the Spirit because He loves His children so much and wants us all to be happy.

Well, that’s all for today. As a reminder, you can order The Holy Ghost from A to Z on Amazon, CedarFort.com, and a bunch of other places if you just Google it. And with that, I wish you a wonderful week and many promptings from the Spirit inspiring you to do good. Talk to you next time!

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!