Season 1 Episode 21 - In today's episode, I share a story of my inward rebellion toward God , to illustrate another important biblical principle I have learned about following the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
"Reflect on This" is the podcast version of short email devotionals I send to my family and friends, where I am sharing the things I am learning about the ways and nature of God, through applying my study of the Scriptures to the world around me.
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Music credit:
Be Thou My Vision Interlude, by Sarah Bereza
Sarah.Bereza@gmail.com
For many years of my adult life, I was in rebellion. No, not the kind of outward rebellion involving overtly immoral actions. My rebellion was much more subtle, and known only to me. What was my rebellion? For several years, I felt a repeated prompting of the Holy Spirit to share my testimony with an elderly neighbor on our street. But I quietly rebelled against that inner nudge, and chose to repeatedly ignore it.
There came a day when my neighbor was lying on his death bed in a nursing home, because the doctors could do nothing more for him. I knew I had one last chance to speak with him. So, on a rainy night, I went to that nursing home, and walked into the room where he lay. He turned his head to look at me. But he could not speak, and it appeared to me that he could not even move his arms. I quickly and nervously shared the simple truths of the Gospel, and invited him to respond to that truth, as best he could.
To my amazement, he slowly moved his arm and grasped my arm with his hand. His eyes looked intently into my eyes, and I could tell that he was struggling to communicate something to me. But he still could not speak. I decided at that point to lead him in a simple prayer of repentance and of accepting Jesus as his Savior. He clutched my arm throughout that prayer. When I finished praying, I grasped his hand in my hand and tried to offer some additional words of hope.
I will not know with any certainty on this side of heaven if he accepted Jesus or not. But I left his room that night feeling joy in my heart, because God had given me one last chance to obey His gentle and persistent promptings to share with my neighbor.
Why did I share this story? Well, from a previous episode, I shared a story from my college years of my introduction into recognizing and acting upon what I call the promptings of the Holy Spirit. For me, these promptings of the Holy Spirit are often little inner nudges to do or say something… or sometime NOT to do or say something.
After all, 1 Corinthians 3:16 says that “you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.”
John 16:13 says that the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all the truth.”
Romans 8:14 says that the sons of God [i.e., followers of Jesus] are “led by the Spirit of God.”
I then shared that the tricky part of this aspect of our walk with the Lord is this: how to distinguish between my own thoughts and those promptings of the Holy Spirit.
In hindsight, I have on many occasions failed to obey these promptings. In recent years, I am learning to take time, after each try, to evaluate the attempt, learn from my mistakes and praise God for the successes.
Back to my earlier question. Why did I share today’s story? To illustrate another thing I have learned about following the promptings of the Holy Spirit: God will often give us a second chance. It is His nature to demonstrate His steadfast love and compassion toward us, by giving us second chances:
Micah 7:18 AMP Who is a God like You, Who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, because He delights in mercy and loving-kindness.
The Prison Fellowship website lists several biblical examples of people to whom God gave second chances:
Think of Moses, who murdered a man (Exodus 2:11-15); Jonah, who fled from God's command (Jonah 1); David, who committed adultery and had a man murdered (2 Samuel 11:14-17); Rahab, who was a prostitute in Jericho (Joshua 2); and Peter, who denied even knowing Jesus after spending three years with Him (Matthew 26:69-75, Mark 14:66-72, Luke 22:55-62, John 18:15-17 and 25-27). Each of these—and dozens of other men and women like them in Scripture—stand as monuments of God's grace (Hebrews 11).
I encourage you to not be like me in today’s story and ignore those promptings. Instead, step out in faith and follow what you perceive to be the promptings of the Holy Spirit. But also take comfort in knowing that God will often give us a second chance to obey those nudges, should we not obey them initially.
Today, I encourage you to “Reflect on This.”