Every once and awhile I will feel unsettled. Unexamined, those unsettled feelings can affect my outlook on life and my response to the people I love. It happened yesterday. I awoke in the morning feeling out of synch. It was not a matter of hidden sin or any unresolved issue. It was simply something wasn’t right and I was projecting that unsettled feeling onto Jan in our conversations.
I finally shared with Jan what I was feeling and she said something that really caught my attention. When you have lived 45 years with an emotionally healthy and wise woman who walks with the Spirit you stop and listen when she speaks. Jan said, “Garris, you are a spiritual thermometer. You sense things other people may not feel. That is usually an indicator something is taking place in the spiritual realm. You need to inquire of the Lord.”
Two things happened when Jan spoke those words. First, I knew I was reading my unsettled feeling from purely a physical level. I was not processing what I was feeling at a deeper, spiritual level. The prophetic gift in my life is like a thermometer. It has been that way all my life. I can pick up a change in the spiritual realm before it manifests in the natural realm. Second, I felt loved and affirmed. Jan took me to a deeper place to not challenge my attitude, but to actually affirm her love for me by letting me know this was not personal. It was something spiritual that needed to be understood with different eyes and emotions in order to create a different response.
Most of the people you will meet today respond to the stimuli of life only at a surface level. To go deeper is looked upon as intellectually sophomoric and spiritually spooky. What is sad is that some in the Church hold a similar view. Verifiable facts and natural reasoning are valued above spiritual discernment. The only way out of this trap is to stop and inquire of the Lord. Ask Him why you are feeling unsettled. Allow God to take you deeper into the realm of the Spirit and in that exploration, the answers will come to explain why you feel unsettled.
In that moment of discovery, your spiritual thermometer will become a valuable and welcomed instrument of faith. You will see the real struggle that is taking place and in that moment of revelation, you will not have enemies like those who cannot see below the surface of the unsettling issues and emotions. You will begin to see the hidden targets for your prayers and the motivating spirits working behind the scenes that are directing the actions of individuals or the wider culture. There is nothing spooky or intellectually inferior about this kind of inquiry. It is how a renewed mind interacts with the world and finds peace in the unsettling seasons of life.
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