Ideas and inspiration at church

I earn my living by making up stories — which means making up people, relationships, families, communities, cultures, worlds and universes that don't exist.

This requires me to look at every aspect of the world around me with a continuous questioning attitude. Why do we do it this way? How else might it be done?

Fiction writers aren't the only people who benefit from thinking that way. Those very questions have led to wonderful inventions like flush toilets, traffic signals, guacamole and the income tax.

As I tell my writing students, the first answer you come up with isn't necessarily the right answer, or even a good answer. You may not even be asking the right question.

There are usually a hundred solutions that will work perfectly well. Unfortunately, there are probably a thousand that won't work at all. The hard part is telling the difference. But you're more likely to find one of the hundred if you don't settle for the first idea that comes along.

This applies even to our work in the church. I've heard some people talk as if God always has one perfect answer in mind, and our job is to pray until he tells it to us.

Sometimes, sure. Most of the time, though, there might be lots of good choices. We're expected to study things out in our mind (Doctrine and Covenants 9:8).

If the job at hand happens not to be translating the Book of Mormon, the Spirit doesn't always tell us whether our idea is right.

Sometimes we have to try out the best idea we thought of, and the moment of "revelation" comes afterward, when we look at each other and say, "Next time let's not do that."

Such moments don't imply that you made a mistake or were not inspired. Maybe the Lord wanted you to have the experience. Maybe the Lord wanted you to do it that way, but only for a while. Maybe there were important benefits that you simply didn't have the wisdom to see.

"It is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant" (Doctrine and Covenants 58:26).

As Latter-day Saints, we might hold all kinds of different callings during our lives. So it makes perfect sense to look at choices made by a particular leader or teacher and think, "How else might that have been done?"

You might have that calling someday, and it's wise to learn from the actions of people you observe doing those callings today.