President Henry B. Eyring on seeking the companionship of the Holy Ghost

President Henry B. Eyring (1933- ) served in the Presiding Bishopric from 1985-1992, as a Seventy from 1992-1995, then was called to the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He has served in the First Presidency since 2007.

"My purpose today is to increase your desire and your determination to claim the gift promised to each of us after we were baptized. During our confirmation we heard these words: 'Receive the Holy Ghost.' From that moment, our lives changed forever.

"We can, if we live worthy of it, have the blessing of the Spirit to be with us, not only now and then, ... but always....

"To always have the Spirit with us is to have the guidance and direction of the Holy Ghost in our daily lives. We can, for instance, be warned by the Spirit to resist the temptation to do evil.

"For that reason alone, it is easy to see why the Lord’s servants have tried to increase our desire to worship God in our sacrament meetings. If we partake of the sacrament in faith, the Holy Ghost will then be able to protect us and those we love from the temptations that come with increasing intensity and frequency.

"The companionship of the Holy Ghost makes what is good more attractive and temptation less compelling. That alone should be enough to make us determined to qualify for the Spirit to be with us always.

"Just as the Holy Ghost strengthens us against evil, He also gives us the power to discern truth from falsehood. The truth that matters most is verified only by revelation from God. Our human reason and the use of our physical senses will not be enough. We live in a time when even the wisest will be hard-pressed to distinguish truth from clever deception."

- Henry B. Eyring, "The Holy Ghost as Your Companion," Ensign, November 2015, pp.
Click here to read the full article

President Eyring's talk in the October 2015 general conference was very personal and tender. He shared family experiences and intimate feelings about the influence of the Holy Ghost. He spoke from his heart, and know whereof he spoke, regarding the blessing of "the blessing of the Spirit to be with us, not only now and then, ... but always." I was moved by these descriptions of some of the blessings of that gift.

So among the blessings are:

• increased guidance in our lives
• warning in times of temptation
• making good more attractive and temptation less
• power to discern truth from falsehood

Marvelous things to consider.  Any of those things, as President Eyring states about one of them, "should be enough to make us determined to qualify for the Spirit to be with us always." What a gift to be treasured — to be earned, and then guarded carefully!

(Compilation and commentary by David Kenison, Orem, Utah, 2022)
January 13, 2016