The Inner Voice

Joel Osteen calls the inner voice "inner promptings."  He is right because there is no voice that I occasionally hear but every time I "hear" it the message is crystal clear: it is not open for interpretation.

Each prompt calls for an action and it is never  repeated.  Every such premonition I have had, has in hindsight never been wrong, even though I was always  wrong not to heed it.  One would think that I would learn to listen to this inner voice over time, but no, I am still stubborn and like to insist on doing things my  way and ignore the advice of God's angels.  To support my stubbornness, I would argue in my mind against the inner voice and rationalize that I am right.  All of this takes place in a matter of seconds and once the decision has been made, the message vanishes and is immediately forgotten until something has gone wrong.

Joel Osteen tells a story of a young man who did not listen to his inner voice [1]:

There's a young man I know who used to do landscaping in our neighborhood. I saw him one day. His face was a mess. He had a black eye, and his lips were swollen. It looked like he had been in an accident. I asked him what had happened. He explained that on his way home from work, he had gotten carjacked. He was sitting at a light when these guys came up, pulled him out of the car, beat him up and took his wallet and a lot of his equipment. Then he said something interesting, "Joel, the funny thing is that something told me not to go home that way."

Very clearly on the inside, God was trying to protect him. He said, "You need to take another route." The man wasn't very religious, wasn't raised in church, yet he heard it so strongly that he even answered it back in his mind. He thought, "Why do I need to go another way? This is the way I always go. That doesn't make sense." There was this debate taking place on the inside, but he ignored it. He finally said, "I realize now that was God trying to protect me from danger. The next time, I'm going to listen."

See, God knows where the pitfalls are. [2]  He knows where the danger is. All through the day, we need to be sensitive to what He's telling us on the inside. We need to pay attention to these promptings. I've learned that God won't allow us to make a major mistake without first giving us warnings. The Scripture says, "God will always provide a way of escape." Could it be that God is providing a way out, giving you wisdom, direction, protection and trying to keep you from danger, but like my friend, you're overriding it?

 Joel is right: "We need to pay attention to these promptings, [3]"  but because they are always gentle (they do not scream at you or shout in your ear), they are easy to override, unlike orders or demands from the workplace boss that come with implied threats.

Of the times that I have listened to and acted upon the inner prompts, events would flow seamlessly, ordinarily, as if that is the way everything ought to be, as always, as if a smooth ride through life is deserved and can be taken for granted.  Because every piece of the puzzle has fit together so well, forgetting about having acted on the inner voice is easy, and thanking God for the divine prompting is far removed from the mind. 



[1] http://www.joelosteen.com/Pages/BlogItem.aspx?item=c9094f47-7d8d-4912-8d59-596cb76ab165#.U5xLpSiQ2es
[2] In my experiences with these promptings, I would say that God not only knows where but when  the pitfalls would occur for I was the one who chose the location of where I would be at.