What God would do in your place is not meant to be an educated guess.1 You need to know God’s will in order to exercise God’s power. You can’t have faith when you ask for something that is contrary to God’s will, but you also can’t have faith if you aren’t confident that your desire matches what God wants.
The secret to gaining more of God’s power is not just in learning more of what he knows, but also in perfectly aligning your actions to what you have high confidence is his will. If you do not have extreme confidence in what you ask of God, you should focus your requests on learning more about the situation rather than asking him to intervene.
Those who receive great priesthood power learn how to restrict their requests to what they have high confidence is the will of God. When the Lord proclaimed that Nephi would be given whatever he asked, he said the reason was that Nephi would not ask anything contrary to his will.2 He did not mean that Nephi knew everything God did, but that Nephi would refrain from asking anything from God that was not perfectly in alignment with his sincere, best understanding of God’s will. Nephi only desired what he had sufficient reason to believe was God’s will.
Footnotes
- 1. Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth. (Mormon 9:21) ↩
- 2. Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments. And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will. (Helaman 10:4-5) ↩