276. The Power of Intuition

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 Transcript

“The primary wisdom is intuition. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their origin.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson

I need to take more showers.  It has nothing to do with how dirty I am but how many ideas come to while in the shower.  I need a waterproof writing pad in the shower because so many ideas float to the surface of my mind while I space out in the warm water.  Shaving also seems somehow connected to coming up with amazing ideas.  I have wondered to myself if the shower and my bathroom sink are holy ground.  I have looked up and wondered if there is some type of spiritual portal between earth and heaven on that very spot.  All because I get so many ideas, intuitive thoughts and nudges by God’s Spirit. 

How does God communicate with us?  We can’t see him.  We can’t touch him.  We can’t hear his physical voice.  We know he talks to us through his Word and we talk to him through prayer.  I believe God also talks to us through our intuition.  He taps our shoulder through the Spirit living in us when a unique thought pops into our mind either once or repeatedly. 

 ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.   John 14:26

You are a spiritual being.  Jesus gave each disciple his Spirit to guide us, teach us and lead us.  How does the Spirit do those things?  I think he has many tools to get our attention.  The Word, coincidence, conscience, powerful preaching and intuition.  God spoke to the prophets in dreams and visions.  He guided Paul through his dream of a man from Macedonia.  I think God guides us through our intuition or inner sight.  We may have an idea that seems crazy, but keeps coming to us over and over. 

Shortly after becoming a Christian, I went home for Christmas to my hometown, Ashland, Oregon.  I went out for a prayer walk and prayed and cried that some day there would be a strong church in that small town of 20,000 people.  Eighteen years later, after I had been overseas for ten years and returned to the US, a thought came to my mind:  “plant a church in your hometown.”  It came with increasing frequency.  I started to notice it.  I would put it aside and tell myself why it was a crazy thought.  I gradually connected my prayer from 18 years earlier to my current situation.  God was using me to answer my own prayer.  I sat down and told my wife Pam, “I want to plant a church in Ashland.”  Three months later, we had our two moving trucks stuffed to the rafters and were on our way to plant a church there.  A mission team of two adults and three kids.

I believe that the Spirit uses our thoughts, ideas and intuition to guide us if we will listen, pay attention and act on those promptings.

Spiritual Guidance or Satanic Whisper?

Not every thought comes from God.  We have to be clear that we are bombarded with thousands of random thoughts every day.  Satan introduced a thought to the mind of Eve and brought down the whole world.  So how do we screen out thoughts introduced by Satan and those originating in God’s will?

I think it starts by asking ourselves simple questions:

·       Does this idea fit with what the Bible tells me?

·       Does this thought lead toward sin?

·       Does this thought appeal to my sinful nature or to my higher, spiritual nature?

·       If I act on this, will it advance God’s Kingdom?

·       Will it help me and others if I choose to do it?

We get cued or triggered daily to lust, to proud thoughts, to sarcastic comebacks and other evil thoughts and actions.  All it takes is a moment to take captive that thought, bring it to the forefront of our mind and either reject it or make it obedient to Christ and his will.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:5, ^“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Evil temptations and triggers can be relatively easy to spot if we are looking carefully.  What is more difficult is evaluating thoughts that are neither right nor wrong.  These ideas may be new, they may appear “crazy” or unprecedented.  They may not fit with your current life and comfortable situation.  For example, you may have the following thoughts pop into your head:

·       I’d like to go overseas and do missionary work

·       I’d like to go to _______ and join or start a new church

·       I’d like to change jobs so that I can be more effective spiritually

·       I’d like to retire and move here to preach the word

·       I’d like to try out the full time ministry

When thoughts like these arise, it’s important not to simply bat them away and tell yourself why you can’t do it or why it won’t work.  The Spirit may be teeing up an idea for you to drive down the course.  Instead, look for more evidence that God may be trying to get your attention:

·       The thought or idea keeps returning unbidden. 

·       Weird coincidences happen that make the thought come to mind or make the idea more realistic

·       Someone else mentions the idea out of the blue

·       You read something in the Bible that points to that thought

·       You hear a sermon that convicts you about the very thing you were considering

·       You hear of someone else doing or attempting the very thing you’d like to do

·       Circumstances change that make what you previously considered impossible a possibility

In 2003 my church went through a shakeup that changed the way my church and related churches were guided.  All of a sudden, there was no longer a master plan for future plantings and development.  It seemed like there was no one in charge any longer.  That change of circumstance provided the opportunity for me to plant a church in a town that wasn’t on anyone’s master plan previously.  When circumstances changed, I realized that God had opened a door to see my prayer realized.

Take action immediately

I would guess that there are at least one or two ideas that have rolled around in the back of your mind for months, years and even decades.  That idea keeps making an appearance and then gets shot down by your rational, reasoning, careful, protective thought process.  We treat the promptings of the Spirit like a child that wants us to come play with him or her.  We tell the child we’ll do it later, not now, it’s not a good time, we’re too busy or some other excuse.  At some point that child will stop asking.  At that point, it’ll be too late, we’ll be too old to act on a dream God has placed in our mind.  As Emerson writes in “Self Reliance,” A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

He is reminding us how important it is to pay attention to the Spirit’s prompting within us.  We tend to discount our own thoughts and ideas as less valuable than others.  If we keep on ignoring our intuition, we’ll hear about our idea or achievement spoken of or accomplished by another person and we’ll kick ourselves.  We’ll scold ourselves saying, “I could have done that, I could have said that, I could have accomplished that.  I had that idea long ago.”  You had intuition, but you didn’t act on it.  I think this is what Paul means when he writes in 1 Thessalonians 5: 19, “¹⁹ Do not quench the Spirit.”  Merriam Webster defines “quench” as “To put out the light or fire of something.  To cool or to cause to lose heat or warmth, to terminate by or as if by destroying.”  God is always trying to light a fire in us to fulfill his amazing purpose for our lives.  He is trying to bring passion, zeal and heat through his spirit into our lives.  Unfortunately, when we ignore, suppress and disregard the Spirit’s promptings we are effectively quenching the Spirit, cooling our zeal and terminating the amazing plans God has for us.

Take action immediately

As long as you’re alive, there’s time to “fan into flame the gift of God.”  (2 Timothy 1:6).  How do you do that?  Take action on the Spirit’s promptings.  Write down what the Spirit is putting on your heart.  What thought or idea has been nagging at you for years?  What would you like to do that you’ve put off for too long.  Write it down and then write down three things you could do today to move you in that direction.  Don’t worry about having a complete plan, just move in the Spirit’s direction.  You’ll be guided if it’s God’s will.

“I want to raise $5,000 for charity this year.” I wrote this down as one of my goals on News Year’s Day while living in Japan.  A though popped immediately into my mind, “How could I raise not $5,000 but $50,000?”  I wrote down some ideas and then thought, “I’d have to do a charity run or something.”  That was the beginning of the Run for HOPE that raised $50,000+ that year and in it’s third year raised $150,000+ for charity.  It all started with an idea, intuition and the Spirit’s prompting.  I remember sitting in a chair in Ron and Nancy Markham’s house when we celebrated the first Run for HOPE.  I remember the feeling of complete peace and satisfaction at having listened to the Spirit’s prompting to do something that helped so many people.  It was and remains a high point for me.  I’m glad I took action on that idea.  Now it’s your turn.

Practicals:

·       Write down what your intuition is point you to do.

·       Write down three actions steps you can take this week to move you in that direction

·       Start praying that God brings that idea to fruition