When I taught 6th grade, I would usually explain the directions for some assignment, and then ask if anyone had any questions.

Assuming you’ve been in a classroom in your life, I bet you know what would usually happen.

The two kids who always asked questions would raise their hands and ask a few questions, and everyone else would smile and look super confident…

But I knew some of them were confused.

I’m not sure why they didn’t raise their hands.

Maybe they were embarrassed to be confused. Maybe they were anxious to speak up. Maybe it just isn’t cool to raise your hand.

The Lord reminds us gently in D&C 1:26, “And inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed”.

This is one of the reasons I’m so psyched to be studying the Doctrine and Covenants this year:

Because virtually every revelation, or “section”, is the Lord’s response to a question.

The Doctrine and Covenants is NOT filled with moments where Joseph Smith was busy hanging out with a friend and then the Lord intruded into his thoughts with a powerful revelation.

It doesn’t have the Lord interrupting Joseph while he was completing a business transaction.

It doesn’t have Joseph Smith seeing heavenly beings while he was in the middle of completing a different project.

Time after time, the Lord responded to Joseph Smith’s questions.

So… we have to be “that kid” in class.

The one who asks the questions. The one who is okay with being confused. The one who is curious and ambitious in our spiritual progression.

We can’t be too cool to care.

We have to be curious, and we have to ask.

Happy Studying!

-Cali Black

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8 Responses

  1. I was the kid who raised my hand until my 2nd grade teacher yelled at me for asking too many questions and then ran to her desk and cried. All my report cards said M… asks too many questions. I learned to figure it out myself or take a lower grade.

  2. Looking for your D&C study snippets on your website. I only see the place to click for the snippets for the Book of Mormon. How do I find them for the D&C?

  3. Why do you spilt your message in two parts? very irritating to have to start again to finish the message. I’m not sure what the advantage of that is.

    1. The messages are too long to be completely included in the emails, so I just include the first half and a button to read more! I apologize that this is irritating for you – I will take your feedback and see what I can do. Thank you!

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