Different Gifts

1 Nephi 16:9

And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord spake unto my father by night, and commanded him that on the morrow he should take his journey into the wilderness.

Different gifts for different people! Lehi's gift was to receive the word of the Lord in dreams. That is not my gift. I have plenty of bizarre dreams, but I cannot recall any that I thought came from the Lord. 

Except perhaps one. In my senior year in high school, I experienced a nightmare in which Satan and his minions attacked me and tried to overcome me. Among those wicked servants of the devil were members of a rock band I had recently joined. The message to me was clear: quit the band and stop listening to that kind of music. I told the guys in the band I was quitting with no explanation or reason, and I dumped all my hard rock albums in the trash.

But other than that one nightmare, my dreams have not been messages from God.

On the other hand, my gift is hearing the word of the Lord in the scriptures. I have received many thousands of words from the Holy Ghost as I have read and pondered the scriptures. I read, I listen, and then I write the thoughts that come to my mind. Some days it is like taking dictation. When I go back later and read comments I have made about various verses, I don't remember writing those things, and I am often surprised by the power of the words from the Spirit that I have recorded.

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