Everyone has a limit in the degree of awareness they are willing and able to manage, and this limit determines how much God can reveal himself to you. You cannot learn more about God without learning more about everything else.4 All things are known to5 and present before God,6 and to the extent that you become like him, all things will be known to7 and present before you.8
The bandwidth of revelation from God grows or diminishes as a whole, depending on whether you notice and live up to it or not. Greater understanding can be sought on specific topics and at specific times, but every increase in wisdom expands the bandwidth of general awareness. General awareness does not limit itself to the topics you explicitly ask about or the times when you are asking. It “bloweth where it listeth”9 at all times and in all places. If you fail to notice, process, and put into practice new information you have access to, you become less like God than you were before. Every new increment of information about and from God makes you accountable for being better than you were before. God’s light is an inexhaustible stream of information.10 God is always ready to show you what lies beyond what you presently see, feel, think, and do. At all times, in all places, and in every circumstance, God highlights what is best, explains why it is so, suggests what is better, and provides sufficient reasons to make it so.11
Knowledge about God does not exist outside of a relationship with God, and relationships with God are living, not static. The longer you maintain a relationship with God, the more that relationship will grow.12 The closer to God you become, the greater the flow13 of information into your mind. If you learn to manage the information God provides to you, he will give you more.14 If you fail to manage the information God provides to you, he will give you less.15 God will hold you accountable for noticing and integrating everything he makes available to you as you strive to make everything as good as you can imagine it to be.16
Managing information well requires you to seek, notice, and respond to it. This almost always includes recording and reviewing it. Do you seek more information? Those who are overwhelmed by what they involuntarily notice will not seek more. How intense or prolonged does new information need to be in order for you to notice it? Can you notice new information even in situations that are familiar? How often do you intentionally diminish the information around you through social media, headphones, or dulling substances? How well do you triage information, parsing it into prioritized plans of action? Do you make changes to improve based on constantly asking how things can be better, or do you train yourself to ignore what is less than ideal? The more you seek, notice, and implement the changes suggested by the information that God makes available to you, you will gain access to more.
Footnotes
- 1. The graven images of their gods shall ye burn with fire: thou shalt not desire the silver or gold that is on them, nor take it unto thee, lest thou be snared therein: for it is an abomination to the Lord thy God. (Deuteronomy 7:25) ...that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God. (Luke 16:15) ↩
- 2. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.... (John 15:18-19) ↩
- 3. But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake (Luke 21:12) ↩
- 4. For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light.... (D&C 88:40) ↩
- 5. O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it. (2 Nephi 9:20) ↩
- 6. He comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever. (D&C 88:41) ↩
- 7. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things. (D&C 93:28) ↩
- 8. But they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord. (D&C 130:7) ↩
- 9. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. (John 3:8) ↩
- 10. And, behold, thou art my son; wherefore look, and I will show thee the workmanship of mine hands; but not all, for my works are without end, and also my words, for they never cease. (Moses 1:4) ↩
- 11. And now, verily, verily, I say unto thee, put your trust in that Spirit which leadeth to do good —yea, to do justly, to walk humbly, to judge righteously; and this is my Spirit. (D&C 11:12) ↩
- 12. That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day. (D&C 50:24) ↩
- 13. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14) ↩
- 14. For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. (Matthew 13:12) ↩
- 15. And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries.... (Alma 12:11) ↩
- 16. Hearken, O ye people who profess my name, saith the Lord your God; for behold, mine anger is kindled against the rebellious, and they shall know mine arm and mine indignation, in the day of visitation and of wrath upon the nations. And he that will not take up his cross and follow me, and keep my commandments, the same shall not be saved. Behold, I, the Lord, command; and he that will not obey shall be cut off in mine own due time, after I have commanded and the commandment is broken. (D&C 56:1-3) ↩