The Spirit Traveling from the Crown of the Head to the Soles of the Feet: God's Tool Box #5
2) Losing something, praying to find it and seeing its specific current location in your head
3) Hearing a voice when no one is there
4) Indescribable calmness during a big decision
Those are all things God has repeatedly used to communicate with his children. Yes – they are just 4 of many – but the well-timed re-usage of them is fascinating! (click the links!).
Here is entry #5 – It seems like the experience often comes just before a major fork in the road. What experience am I talking about? The sensation of the Spirit starting in the crown of your head and traveling down your body to the soles of your feet. Sometimes repeatedly.
It is both powerful and personal. The first one here is from a man named Scott Wedge. He posted it in a Youtube video. He was trying to save up to go on a mission but he kept having untimely financial setbacks. What it seems like, is God didn’t want him to go just yet. He had something to give him first.
The below excerpt starts with him getting an emissions test. (transcribed from Youtube. I take full blame for any horrible punctuation placement.)
Scott Wedge
1) …I was reading a spiritual book at the time - Elder [Vaughn] Featherstone if I remember correctly. And so I'm sitting in the lobby room waiting for them to tell me about my car, and the guy comes and tells me I need to come back to the back room where [my] car is. So I went to the back and he [told] me that my car failed the emissions, and some of the repairs that need to be done on it, and I remember being just overwhelmed. This is more money coming from me [while] trying to get on a mission, and so I was pretty distraught.
As I walked back into the lobby room, I [had] left my book on the chair, and I remember there was an elderly black lady, maybe in her 60s or 70s from what I remember. I picture her so much in my head. She was holding my book and she looked at me and she said, as I walked up to her to get the book, she said “Is this your book?” I said “Yeah,” and she expressed such a gratitude to me [for] learning about Christ at my young age, and how awesome that was that I was wanting to learn about Jesus Christ. She shared about her wayward grandson who she wished was learning about Christ, and his troubles, and so she expressed a great love for me. When we got done I said “Hey I have something I want to share with you.” Keep in mind I had a box of Book of Mormons in the car, and I went out to the car and she followed me and I gave her a book of Mormon. Little did I know but I shared with her the first principle of the gospel, I didn't know what I was doing, but I shared it with her.
I was on a spiritual high. Keep in mind for the last year - year and a half I had been eating, drinking, doing nothing less [than] trying to serve a mission for my Heavenly Father. And in this moment I was sharing the gospel, and I remember feeling I was on such a high [for] being able… to share the gospel. She took the Book of Mormon and she left.
I got in the car and I started to drive home. I was on such a high, but by the time I got to the stoplight I fell. I became very angry. I felt that God dangled this carrot in front of me – “Ooh here's a mission, this is what it feels like! Nope! Can't have it! Oh nope! Here's that mission you - nope you can't have it!” I became very angry that God would play with me like that.
He gave me this experience and then took it away from me. I couldn't understand why, it was so hard for me to put everything together - the money, to be able to save to go on a mission.
During this moment of anger came doubt, came - maybe I was just making myself do this. Like I said I was very focused - maybe I was just making myself believe in this. I was just doing it because I was trying to fulfill a yearning or something. I don't know but I started to doubt everything. …was this something [that was] even true or [that I] believed in, and not only that but the feeling [that] I need to get on with my life. I was putting off college. I was putting off dating. I was putting off all these things and all came to a pinpoint at that point - what do I do? and I made the decision – it wasn't worth it.
[In] that short drive from the red light to my house, and I don't know if I would have stopped going to church, I don't know, I'm not saying that, but I know that I made the decision I was going to go on with my life. I was gonna go to college, I was gonna put the mission behind me and I was gonna start focusing on my life. That was the decision I made.
And I remember as I got out of the car, feeling an urging to pray to my Heavenly Father. I remember looking up at the skies and shaking my fist – “How dare you! I don't want to pray! I don't want to pray! I want to go on with my life.” But the urge was strong. Now, I remember rushing to my house when no one was home. To this day I remember taking the keys, the door entry was through the kitchen door that opened at the kitchen. I remember taking my keys and throwing them on the table and them sliding on the table and hitting the back wall. And I remember rushing into my bedroom and remember closing my door and I remember throwing myself on the floor. [I] remember kneeling and I remember praying like I had never prayed before. I let Heavenly Father know what all my urges, my pain - was this the right thing to do? Was the church even true? Was there a plan for me? Was there a plan to go on a mission? To go on with my life - everything came out in this prayer. And it was so personal and it was so real. It was so real. and I got done with that prayer, and I will never forget. I remember as if a pin dropped on my head like a drop of water, and I remember it was just cascading all the way through me - to the tips of my toes. I remember feeling electrified and feeling hugged and loved and encompassed.
I remember feeling there was a plan, and that there was great purpose that Heavenly Father was preparing me for. That I need to be patient, that it would be worth it, and that he loved me and that the church was true. All of this came in this moment. That was my to conversion story! That was my moment! I've had few moments like that in my life, and that was one of those times that I had that moment. To this day it's not a moment I can ever deny. I have the faith of Alma, because when the experience ended I remember looking up towards the heavens saying “Heavenly Father - do it again.” I must have been - oh my goodness. I think of that [now] how non [humble] that is, I don't know the right word, but at the time it felt right I guess. And I felt so, so much faith, that I can move mountains. And you know what? Heavenly Father complied. It happened again - the drop of water all the way down tips of my toes. Electrified. Held. Loved. Encompassed. Everything all over again. Repeated. I stood up on my feet that day, knowing with full assurity that the Church is true, and God loves me and he has a plan for me…” (starts at about 21:19)(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D31fbxT96rc&list=FLEjnnW5_HAZThfdzHzonFug)
This next one is interesting because it happened 22 years before the person joined the Church. It is from a book he co-wrote called Building Bridges Between Spirit-filled Christians and Latter-day Saints (Mormons).
Rob Datsko
2) “I had just been prayed over, by one of my bosses and his pastor. I had asked to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit… They had laid hands upon my head and prayed over me… I felt the Holy Spirit, and sincerely thanked them, then went back to work. A few minutes later, in the back office filing cabinet room, the light in the room grew three times brighter. I felt something like warm liquid honey and liquid love pouring down from heaven on top of my head flowing down to my feet. I could hardly stand under the power… I have never been the same since…
“…At age 46, twenty-two years later, I was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by a LDS priesthood holder. I could not have come into the LDS Church without the gift from the Holy Spirit… “
This next one was recounted in an Elder D. Todd Christofferson conference talk in April 2020. This account though, is not an excerpt from Christofferson's talk, but is from the person who experienced it. In extreme summary, it’s about a High School kid growing up in the Jewish faith in Arizona. He had some Latter-Day Saint friends, some of which gave him a Book of Mormon. He didn’t feel like he could read it at home because his parents would see. He kept it in his backpack for months. It got pretty beat up and his friend who gifted it was disappointed that it was going unread. Jason decides the only way to get rid of it is to light it on fire:
Jason Olson
3) One night, I decided just to be done with it. I slipped a lighter into my pocket. I tucked the Book of Mormon under my shirt. Then I snuck out to the backyard to burn the book. As I was just about to flick the switch to start up the flames, I felt a voice, at once firm and gentle, pierce my mind and heart. “Do not burn my book,” it said. I hesitated. Was that the voice of God holding me back? Or was my mind playing tricks on me? I didn’t want to do anything sacrilegious. Was I going to fall for this fake Mormon propaganda the same way I was ready to listen to “Mitch,” the fake Jews for Jesus missionary? I held up the lighter again. But that feeling of a voice pressed again. “Go to your room and read my book,” it seemed to say…
…When I reached the end, I knelt to pray about it.
There are moments in life that transcend the limits of our understanding. Moments that fill the heart, enlarge the soul. Moments when God writes his will on us, when the flesh of our hearts becomes his tablet.
I found myself closing my prayer in the name of Jesus Christ. The next moment, I was filled from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet with the spirit of God. I felt full of light. Like I was glowing with it.
When I rose from my prayer, I knew for myself that the Book of Mormon was true.
#4 is from another conference talk. At this point - I bet you’re regretting those semi-annual Sunday afternoon naps. It’s from Joseph B. Wirthlin in April 2003. It involves a friend who thought he’d never get a large, Book of Mormon confirming spiritual experience of his own. He was wrong:
A Friend of President Wirthlin
4) A friend of mine once told me about his experience in coming to know and understand the gift of the Holy Ghost. He had prayed often and longed to know the truth of the gospel.
Although he felt at peace with his beliefs, he had never received the certain knowledge for which he hungered. He had reconciled himself to the fact that he might be one of those who would have to walk through his life relying upon the faith of others.
One morning, while pondering the scriptures, he felt something surge through his body from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. “I was immersed in a feeling of such intense love and pure joy,” he explained. “I cannot describe the measure of what I felt at the time other than to say I was enveloped in joy so profound there was no room in me for any other sensation.”
Even as he felt this outpouring of the Holy Ghost, he wondered if possibly he was just imagining what was happening. “The more I wondered,” he said, “the more intense the feelings became until it was all I could do to tearfully say, “It is enough.”
(https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2003/04/the-unspeakable-gift?lang=eng)
And then, at the friends request, it was over.
It’s interesting to see how major experiences like this pop up repeatedly out there. It really is a tool box. Use the tool, put it back in the box, use it one someone else, put it back in the box. All four of these are the same – but not exactly the same.
If this has happened to you, I would love to hear about it?
Yes, it happened twice to me. It felt like a warm burning flow from my head traveling to my toes. I looked around and no one else was feeling it. There was a lecturer named Lucille Johnson. She was talking about trials in her life. I had just lost a baby. She said, one of you is thinking, "She has never lost a baby. Well, honey, I want you to know I have." It was me.
ReplyDeleteThe witness to her words was incredible. I felt like warm water had been poured over me. It traveled from my head down my body and to my toes.It was so powerful. God knew and Sister Johnson was his messenger, and I knew, too. The second time was a bit later and I was sitting in Relief Society. I do not recall what the lesson was about or what was said, but I do know I was feeling the spirit as I listened, when again, I felt that warmth flow over me. I kind of looked around and knew I was the only one. So I just gave it my attention and wondered at it, then pondered it in my heart. Oh, thanks for helping me remember yet again. So peaceful!