Warren, Axl and I had dinner at an Italian restaurant one day last week, all of us, all THREE of us ate off the menu, no smuggled in chicken nuggets involved. This one sentence alone is worthy of an entire post of praise. We experienced a small miracle in our family and an answer to long-term prayer. Family dinners aren’t always spiritual experiences, but that night was delightful.
Axl is our five-year-old little boy and while he has good five-year-old boy manners, he doesn’t always meet the mommy standard. So, once again, I reminded him that if someone, in this case the lovely waitress, speaks to him he should drop everything, look at them, and speak back. Exasperated, I said, “What can I do to help you remember this? Do you need to go to bed early, lose a toy? What would help you?” Axl’s very serious reply was, “I don’t know, maybe you could just waive your hands to remind me.” At which point, he demonstrated the very lively hand motions that would no doubt capture his attention and not so subtly say, “Hey, this is one of those times when I need you to do the right thing.” I tried to explain the fullness of my meaning through my laughter, but the moment had passed.
I think Axl was really on to something. Wouldn’t it be so nice if Heavenly hands could just reach down and waive back and forth to get our attention? “Hey, this person needs to hear about My forgiveness today.” “Hey, this is one of those times when people are taking note of your reaction – Do the right thing.” Or “Hey, this is the way to go, turn now.” The thing is, while we may not see lively hand motions from above, the Holy Spirit is the internal equivalent. The Bible teaches that He leads (Luke 4:1), empowers (Acts 1:8), and instructs (Acts 1:2) us.
One of my favorite verses, Isaiah 30:21 says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’” I know that this reality is available to me, but I don’t always take advantage of it. The reasons are numerous, but they all lead back to my lifeline of prayer. When we accept Christ as our savior, we are indwelt with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:37-39). We have all of Him that we are ever going to get, the only variable is how much of us is He going to get. We have to allow ourselves to be close enough to Him, so that when He whispers in our ear, “This one. She needs to hear about Me.”, we are in tune enough to recognize His voice and trust that He’s waving His Heavenly hands. A very dear friend and mentor once told me that it resembled phone conversations with a friend. If you speak to someone often, you recognize the voice right away. If you don’t speak to them often, their voice is unfamiliar and strange. The same is true with the Holy Spirit.
Over the years, I’ve struggled with prayer. Sometimes it just plain stresses me out. I start to pray for the struggles in my own life, then the needs of my family, this country, this world, and I get overwhelmed and then, I quit. I think, God knows the needs; He doesn’t need me to point them out, and with that I can avoid the stress. The Bible’s instruction contradicts that line of reasoning. Yes, God does know the needs, and while He doesn’t need me to point them out He has called, commanded me as a believer to bring them to Him, to leave the stress at His feet (2 Chronicles 7:14, Mark 11:23-35). Communication is the key to any great relationship, the relationship we have with Jesus is no different.
Axl was right, waiving hands are an effective prompt to capture someone’s attention, but it’s the internal still small voice of God that believers rely on for direction. In the same way Axl will mature and learn to rely less on parental prompts, believers grow and mature in their faith, recognizing with greater clarity the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
With much love,
