The day before Thanksgiving I was in Provo picking up a few rides. On that day, you never know where your rides are going to come from or go. The normal patterns are all disrupted and so it’s kind of potluck. I’d hoped to stay down in Utah County because I didn’t want to get far away and I didn’t know how good the nightlife was going to be in Salt Lake so I just thought I’d stay down in Utah County.
I got a ride on 100 North in Provo that went to the airport in Salt Lake. At first, I was a little disappointed as this was totally not my plan but I felt that I should take it. I have about 10 cancellations a month that I can use and I had used plenty of them so I had a second thought. Then I felt prompted that I needed to take this so I did. I drove up to the sidewalk where he was and I couldn’t process what my eyes were telling me.
The guy I was picking up was very rough looking and I started to doubt the prompting that I had received and thought again about canceling the ride. Dpending an hour in the car with someone that brings a bad spirit is hard. On top of that it was pure 100% rush-hour and it was going to be bumper-to-bumper and stressful.
As I considered canceling it the words of President Mortensen, who was the first branch president that I served with at the MTC, came back to me. He would say “always trust your revelation”. That impacted me because sometimes we doubt our revelation and then dismiss our revelation.
I decided to trust my revelation and the thought came to me, you just need to change the spirit in the car.
He got in the car and we started chatting about where he was going. He was going to the airport in Salt Lake to get on the Salt Lake Express shuttle going to Idaho Falls for Thanksgiving. I lit up when he said that because my dad used to drive for Salt Lake Express after he retired and finished his missions. I decided to tell him a little about my dad.
I talked about how my dad had a very difficult life as a young man. Then how he had found the church and turned it all around. He raised a family in the gospel, served three missions and in the end, was called home by his Heavenly Father through the power of the priesthood.
I told him about my father’s passing and the revelation I received about the blessing I gave him. I told him that in the blessing I commended my father to his Heavenly Father and told him about the mission that he was to perform on the other side.
He said, my parents both passed recently and it’s been very hard for me. I said, where are you from? He said, I’m from Florida originally but when I was four my birth parents died. I was taken out of foster care and adopted by a family in Springville. He talked about that family and I mentioned to him how much I admire people who adopt like that.
I told him, “my goodness I was a handful when I was four!” He laughed and said, I guess I never thought of it like that. I could hear the pain in his voice and knew that my discussion to this point had been guided by the spirit. I knew God had a plan.
I started talking about how much our father in heaven loves us and that he loved him enough to put him in a home where he could be taken care of. This family had lots of members. The sister in Idaho Falls that he was going to visit was another adopted sister in this family.
I said, that’s cool that you can be with family on Thanksgiving even though both of your sets of parents have passed. He said, “me and her get along really well. “
I said, you were raised in the church, right? This would have been a long shot if the spirit hadn’t been with me because he had tattoos, big piercings, a rough exterior and no outward appearance that would indicate membership or discipleship. There was no light in his eyes.
He said, yes, I was raised Mormon but I don’t believe any of that stuff now. He said, I believe that it’s important to be spiritual but I do not believe in any religion. He seemed very adamant about that.
It’s kind of one of my pet peeves when people say this. To me, it means, I am committing sin and have committed sin that I do not want to straighten out and rectify. They think that by saying this they get the ultimate pass. They think that they can say hey, I’m a good person and I think everyone should be a good person and no one should judge what a good person is. It’s the ultimate copout because in this thought pattern, sins are not sins, good is not good, bad is not bad and everything is reduced to a preference. I could see this is how he had gone in his life.
The spirit indicated to me that he had done some things and he didn’t want to face up to it. I looked at him in the mirror and said, I think you’ve had some rough situations in your life. I think you really don’t remember God and you certainly don’t remember how much he loves you.
You don’t remember Jesus Christ and the things he did for you.
I felt very strongly that I should speak to him about the Garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus suffered all of the sin, inequities, pain, embarrassment, unjust behavior and problems that we would ever suffer.
I explained to him that a lot of people talk about the atonement as repentance and that’s all. I said, the atonement IS about repentance but so much more. I said, there was never an experience you had that your father in heaven was not able to help you through because of the atonement of Jesus Christ. I said, the vilest sinner and the most oppressed person can both find healing from their affliction in the atonement of Jesus Christ.
I told him what happens is that when we are wronged, treated unjustly or we treat someone poorly we get angry and Satan is in our ear telling us to blame God. I said, God points to Jesus. Jesus through the atonement can heal our hearts, heal our minds and heal our souls.
I told him that the atonement is like a medicine that we can put on our soul to soothe it so we love and crave being in the presence of God. I told him that I felt like this had been the case with him. I told him that Satan had been in his ear saying blame God and he had done exactly what Satan told him to do.
I told him that he had gone through some tremendous suffering but God had never left him and would never quit loving him. I said that Heavenly Father is like an earthly father that never quits loving and never quits trying to bring us home. He just needs us to look to Christ so we can be healed.
I could tell I was starting to gain his attention. I had seen a spark in him and he was starting to engage. I felt prompted to share a story from my blog that happened in my car. I told him the story about a young man who I picked up in Salt Lake a couple years ago. This story is one of my previous stories called the spirits in prison https://sometimesgodsendsyoualift.com/2021/08/22/the-spirits-in-prison/
I talked about how this guy got in my car and during our conversation I had impressions that I needed to share with him. He said that was OK and I talked to him about how three weeks before he had been in jail, abused and hopeless. He was about to succumb to the darkness in the middle of the night. He prayed and he looked up and saw a beam of light and he held onto it like a lifeline. I told him that the young man wondered how I could possibly know that. I told him that God had given me those words so that he could know that the things I was saying were true. I testified of Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon then gave him a Book of Mormon.
I told my passenger that a month later this young man was baptized. That night he realized that his father in heaven was reaching out for him. He reached back.
I have mentioned this a couple of times in other rides, but very rarely, maybe one or two other times. This time I felt very impressed to share that story.
As soon as I finished that story, he said, that could be me. That was me! He said, I was in jail because of some bad decisions that I had made. I was drug addicted, abused, and looked at myself as a victim. I hated the world and I laid there in the darkness about to succumb to evil.
He said, I prayed and I saw that same glimmer of light and it gave me hope. He said, how did you know to share that with me? I said, Heavenly Father gave me these words today so that you could know that the rest of the things I say are true and that they come from him.
He said, it seems like you’ve been reading my history to this point. I believe what you just said. I said, it’s not just that, it’s the feeling of the spirit that’s in the car. I could tell that the spirit was very active in the car and that he was feeling it. I wanted to get him to talk about it.
I asked him what he felt. He said, I feel like the things that you said are true. I didn’t feel like he was going to go any deeper than that about how he felt but I was prompted to testify more.
I talked to him about Joseph Smith being called to be a prophet. I talked to him about how Joseph received the keys of the restoration. I told him that we have the same keys and authority today to run the church. Those keys give us authority to bind in heaven and on the Earth. I told him that those are the things that make our belief different than any other church. I told him we have a prophet and we have the authority that God has given us so that we can do the necessary things in order to return to him.
I said, one of the things that you have been concerned about with regards to religion is that it seems very exclusionary. I told him that this is not uncommon in his generation. I explained to him that through temples, God provides an opportunity for every one of his children, no matter where they were born to be baptized and returned to him. I told him, our religion is the church of God, the church of Jesus Christ, and it has the mission and capability of saving every one of God‘s children who was ever born.
I told him God is a perfect father and a loving father and he wants all of his children to come home. I asked him if he would like to go home someday to be with God and he said yes.
I told him that Jesus Christ came to America when he came, he gave that same authority to the people here so that they could be baptized because that baptism was so very important.
I mentioned that all of the people had previously been baptized in their previous church but that there is only one faith one baptism and one church. Jesus wanted everyone to be baptized with his baptism in his church. I told him that Jesus loved them, he helped them and he blessed them and he gave them salvation through baptism.
I asked him how he felt about that and he said, I feel like that’s true. He said, I’ve never felt that in my life like I feel it right now. I asked again, how does it make you feel? He said, I don’t talk about my feelings but I will say that I know that it’s true based on those feelings.
I said, I feel impressed that you were on the outs with your parents when they died and they very much want you to come back. I said, I feel like their prayers are guiding this encounter of ours.
He was quiet for a minute then he said that his parents had died while he was in prison a couple of years ago. The last few conversations they had were not loving or friendly. He said, it left a hole in my heart. I don’t know that I have anyone to turn to.
I told him that his parents had taken advantage of the atonement that I spoken of before. It had healed their hearts and they wanted to reach out to him, he was still in their prayers. I told him that they prayed him into this car so that I could testify to him. I told him that he now had the opportunity to turn over a new leaf and change his ways.
I felt to ask him if he had felt the presence of his parents in the car even though I had not felt their presence. I went ahead and ask that question. He said, yes, I have and it’s kind of mixed feelings for me because of the way we left things.
I told him that one of the amazing things about the atonement is it not only forgives us of our sins and helps us in our suffering, but it also makes it possible for us to forgive others. I told him that we need to learn to forgive, look to Jesus and quit blaming God. I told him that if we looked to Jesus, the sword will be taken out of our hand and we will be able to forgive people.
I told him that we’re all just down here doing the best we can and that included his parents. I asked him if he would like to forgive them and he said yes. I asked him if that was a burden on his shoulders and he said yes. I said, look to Jesus and you can do that, he will lift that burden and help you.
The car was full of the spirit and I said, God put you in the car today because he wants you back and your parents have been praying for you. He said, there’s no way you could’ve known these things if that wasn’t true. I asked him again, do you want to go on through your life in bitterness and sorrow or do you want to throw that off and walk uprightly before God? I said, do you want to be clean? Do you want to be clean and worthy before God?
He said, I really do but I don’t think that’s possible anymore. I said, that’s Satan talking. I told him that Satan whispers those words in his ear and he whispers words like that in the ears of every single person. I told him that he needs to learn to throw off Satan and quit listening to Satan and his lies. He needs to read the scriptures and pray. He needs to come back to his Heavenly Father and listen to the words that God puts in his heart.
I said, listening to the words of God in your heart is so much more powerful than listening to the whisperings that Satan puts in your ear.
I asked him if he had a Book of Mormon and he said yes. I asked him if he downloaded the app onto his phone and he said no. I helped him do it. I said, you should put those headsets in and listen to this. It will lift you so that you can feel like you’re feeling right now anytime you want.
I said, what you are feeling right now is how you feel in the presence of God and your spirit will crave that. I said, that will fill the holes in your life and make you feel full and whole. I said, that will help you avoid drugs and that will help you come home to your father. It’s like a homing beacon.
He said, I sure would like to have this with me. I sure would like to feel like this. I told him if he would pray and read the Book of Mormon every day he could feel like this and it would lift him. I asked him if he knew where the ward met near him. He said no. We looked it up and found the church and time.
I told him to go to that ward and feel for this spirit. I told him not to go there and judge people really fast before they judge him. I told him not to focus on what the other people are saying or doing but to focus on the spirit and how it feels. I told him that there are people at church that do judge and they shouldn’t. That is their sin but we want to be just as tolerant of their sin as we expect them to be of ours. I said, go there and feel.
I said, the most important thing to remember is that the church is a hospital not a museum for perfection and everyone there is sick. I told him that Satan told him he couldn’t go to church because he had sinned. I said, that’s what Satan does. He says, blame God and blame the church. He whispers things in your ears to dissuade you from taking this step.
I said, you’re strong and independent. You tell Satan to get lost and you do what you know your father in heaven wants you to do. After today, you know he loves you. After today, you know that the church is true and after today you know that you need to make some changes.
He said, I’ve got some serious things to change and some decisions to make. He said, I know God put me in your car so that I could learn what I need to do. I said, will you commit to going to church on Sunday? He said, it’s going to be hard but I will, I will go and feel.
I said, look at the light in everyone’s eyes. That light is not there because they’re perfect. That light is there because they’re trying really hard to do the things their father wants them to do and they’re trying to come home. I said, that could be you too.
He thanked me and said he would do this. He got out of the car and got on his bus.
I believe that this is the Thanksgiving weekend that his parents have been praying for. Just another ride to the airport! Happy Thanksgiving weekend!
Sometimes God sends you a lift 