"Quench Not the Spirit"

Today I've had a lesson in learning to stop fighting the Spirit.  I've been trying to make a decision about something for quite some time now, and up until today it had felt to me that the answer was always eluding me.  I fasted about this decision today, and at the end of the day, I basically had a prompting that felt like the Lord was telling me, "I've given you the answer; you simply need to stop fighting it."   Once I had that prompting, I realized that as I had been weighing the pros and cons of each side of this decision, I really had known the way I should go, but because I'd wanted things to go the other way, I kept fighting it without even really realizing it.

As I was talking to Jill (whom I've talked to about this decision before) about my realization of what I'd been doing, she said that during the time we had talked about it before, she had felt like I was leaning one way when I really knew I should be leaning the other way.  My mom is that way all the time.  She always seems to figure out what I'm going to decide before I decide it.  I guess that's what mothers are for.  But now my roommate's doing it too??  I guess I'm always destined to have someone else figure out what I'm going to decide before I do.  ;)  Fortunately, my mother has always refrained from telling me about her revelations about me until after I figure it out myself so I can have the opportunity to learn and grow (although sometimes I wish she'd tell me so I didn't have to figure it out :)), and Jill did the same thing in this situation.  It's a little embarrassing to have my roommate see through me so easily when I can't even see through myself, but I guess that's a mark of when you know and are close to a person.  Or maybe I'm just ridiculously easy to read.  One of the two.  :)

Anyway, my experience today reminded me of a talk I just listened to the other day.  I've started going back through the Conference talks from past years and listening to at least one a day, and right now I'm listening to talks from the October 2007 General Conference.  I just listened to a talk by Keith K. Hilbig entitled "Quench Not the Spirit Which Quickens the Inner Man."  The entire talk can be found here: http://lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/quench-not-the-spirit-which-quickens-the-inner-man?lang=eng&query=quench+spirit

One line that stood out to me said, "We too must be careful not to hinder, disregard, or quench the Spirit in our lives" (emphasis altered).  When I listened to that talk, I noticed the quote, but I didn't really think about it.  Then it came to my mind tonight, and I'm certain it was because the Spirit brought it to my remembrance.  So I'm going to try to keep that in mind and not quench the Spirit when it tells me what I should do.  I'm grateful for these reminders tonight.