The Sensitivity of the Spirit and Decision Making

Among the most formative experiences of my Christian life was a 5 year period of discipleship with my American friend, Paul. I edited and commented on the first draft of his manuscripts, which have now become two successful books, “Love Walked Among Us” and “A Praying Life.” He said in the former that he found his voice while working with me, and I am glad that happened. He was a skilled discipler– I guess an older tradition would have called it a spiritual director–and so we swapped spiritual direction for editing. He said, when we worked out our bargain, “Oh, I’ll come out ahead.” However, there is no doubt in my mind that I did that.

We studied Romans, Galatians and the Gospels over a period of 5 years, 1997 to 2002. Paul had written a 62 week study on the Gospels which I later taught, though not particularly successfully.  And there was homework. Lots of questions every week. I used to fax in 5 to 6 typed pages of my answers to the essay type questions, I sometimes got to 10 pages. I loved it; it made me think, which is one of my favourite activities– just thinking.

In discipleship, or spiritual direction, one has  to be honest (there is no sense going into it if one is not going to be as honest as it is humanly possible to be at that time. I get more honest about who I am each decade I live, as I care less about what people think of me.). So I handed in honest answers for a woman in her thirties.
* * *
An issue which came up was what a scientist friend of mine calls “dynamic equilibrium.” Holding in balance the two elements of my life–my call to write, and my call to be a wife and mother. Once I start writing and thinking, it is very hard for me to shift gears to laundry, dishes, house-keeping. I would resolve to balance my life better as Paul and I chatted for the weekly hour; resolve and fail.

Anyway, in our sessions, I would resolve to be the perfect housewife. To surrender my writing to God. How long would that last? Not very long. And I would fax in pages of homework on Romans, Galatians, the Gospels, the doctrine of sonship, whatever we were studying. (Paul was a theologian).

Finally, Paul said to me. “Anita, you should publish your homework. Just as it is.” (You know, I might, if I can bear to look back at it, and at that young spiritually struggling woman.)

Then he said, “Anita, your insights are priceless. But if you do not obey what the Spirit is saying, God will take them away, and not give you any more.”

And that was that. He was silent. And so was I.
* * *
I was chilled. It was one of the most formative sentences anyone has ever spoken to me.

I took it on board. It is one of my core convictions. That the most dangerous thing I can do is ignore what the Spirit is saying. Is to say,” I will obey in a little while,” as one of my daughters says when I say it’s bedtime.

Because, as R.T. Kendall, says in a book I have been leafing through,” The Sensitivity of the Spirit,” the Spirit is a gentleman. He gets up and leaves very quietly when he is ignored. And the worst thing is, you don’t even realize that he has got up and gone.
* * *
I have made many of the most significant decisions of my life because I heard the word of God telling me, sometimes in a clear memorable sentence, sometimes in an overwhelming impression, that that was what I had to do. I applied to (only!) the University of Oxford, when I lived in a small Indian town from where no one had gone to Oxford, because I heard God tell me to do that I decided to become a writer because I clearly heard the voice of God suggesting that I do that.  I married my husband, who was then just a good, dear friend, because again of an inner impression that I believed (and believe, was from God. I also fell in love, of course, once we started dating.) I started a unusual business because I heard clear directives from God on how to go about it. And we both left the 9-5 work world, again because I heard that directive from God in prayer. I took up blogging 5 months ago, because I heard God suggest it on a walk on a beach in France in April this year.

All these decisions have been good. What is the price for being able to hear vital, helpful, time-saving, very beneficial and blessed directions? This is it. Sigh. That when God says, “Anita dear, yes, that would be a lovely blog post, I agree, but please could you help Roy out with that messy room he’s trying to order,” I don’t say “in a bit,” but obey now. So the dreary obedience is the price of the amazing, pyrotechnic suggestions that the fun-loving Spirit delights in sharing.
* * *
On the subject of writing, my struggle was to surrender it to God, so that it was no longer MY writing. So that he could be my editor, literary agent, publicist. So that if was okay with me if I wrote loads of books, or none at all.

Praise God, that issue is no longer a live one in my life. How did that happen? Well,  I had to give up my writing for a period of almost 4 years–May 2006 until early Jan 2010. And when God returned my writing to me in January 2010, it was transformed. I wrote in an entirely different style, diametrically different from the literary style I had loved and aspired to before. I now write quickly, easily and a lot.

I witnessed what I considered an injustice, and wrote about it on this blog (posts now deleted, incidentally). Unfortunately, my writing bore a more than accidental resemblance to people living and not dead. Was I right? Or wrong? Should my post remain up? Or be taken down? I could think of compelling reasons on either side. So could everyone who advised me. I had an inbox full of emails, encouraging me to leave it up, urging me to take it down. And I could not hear what the Spirit was saying. And so I vacillated in a most uncharacteristic way for I am usually a decisive woman, who can make up my mind and act very quickly.
* * *
I was telling my husband, Roy this morning, that I wish I had written down the reasons for and against both courses of action. I have used that way of decision making for over 25 years, since another spiritual adviser suggested it to me. Once the reasons for a course of action fill a couple of pages, and the reasons against it are slim (I  include scriptural verses and principles in these columns), the commonsensical course is now clear.

Common sense is one element in discerning God’s will. One element. Not the only element, nor the crucial one. The crucial one, I believe, is what the spirit and the word say.

“Oh Roy,” I said. “I wish I had just written down the arguments for and against. My course of action would have been so much clearer.”

“Well,” he said, “The experience need not be wasted. You are a writer. Write a post about the wisdom and sanity of this method of decision-making. It will be an interesting post.”

And if it isn’t, friends, well, you know whom to blame!!

“SIN BOLDLY” –MARTIN LUTHER


The fascinating, complex German reformer Martin Luther was many things. One of them was quotable!


 Luther’s views were condemned as heretical by Pope Leo X in the bull Exsurge Domine in 1520. He was, consequently, summoned to either renounce or reaffirm them at the Diet of Worms on 17 April 1521. When he appeared before the assembly, Johann von Eck, acting as spokesman for Emperor Charles the Fifth, showed Luther a table filled with copies of his writing. Eck asked if he still believed what these works taught. Luther requested time to think about his answer. Granted an extension, he prayed, consulted with friends and mediators, and presented himself before the Diet the next day.


The counselor put the same question to Luther. Here is Luther’s famous answer, “Unless I am convinced by proofs from Scriptures or by plain and clear reasons and arguments, I can and will not retract, for it is neither safe nor wise to do anything against conscience. Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.“


On May 25, the Emperor issued his Edict of Worms, declaring Martin Luther an outlaw.



And here is Luther’s famous statement to Philipp Melanchton: “If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, sin boldly, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign.” [Letter 99.13, To Philipp Melanchthon, 1 August 1521.]

Roy, I & Jake just went for a lovely moonlight 9 p.m. run down our dirt country lane–access only, no cars.

He says I am just like Jake the Collie, in that I love to curl up all day, and pretend I like runs.

I said HE was like Jake the Collie, in that he loves to curl up all day, the only difference being that Jake loves runs, & Roy loves tea.

Having agreed on this, we both petted Jake, who happily wagged his tail!

St John at Patmos,

John’s vision of Patmos (a vision rather than a theophany, incidentally!)

Among the lampstands was someone “like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest.¹⁴His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. ¹⁵His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. ¹⁶In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
 ¹⁷When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. ¹⁸I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

John was exiled to Patmos. Ostensibly, the end of influence, the end of his ministry, the end of his life. His life had ended. (I have so often felt like that, that my life as I had envisioned it has come to to a dead end, and failed!).

Yet, because of the word of God, which can be spoken even in the absence of the written Scripture, when you think your influence and ministry is over, it can be the strongest. (Another example is the wonderful, soul-nourishing letters Paul wrote in the desert of prison.)

(Patmos was hot and barren, incidentally. It informed John’ss vision of heaven–Never again will they hunger;
never again will they thirst.
The sun will not beat upon them,
nor any scorching heat.
For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;
he will lead them to springs of living water.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”)

And in this desert place, in this wilderness season, he received a vision of God, and it made everything different. He saw Christ--pure, passionate, powerful, eternal, beautiful.

And with the the Revelation, the despised, forgotten, powerless prisoner becomes a prophet and a pastor, a pastor for the ages, as the best spiritual writers are.

The most important things happen on the inside.Our spiritual life is the most important dimension of our lives–not the intellectual, not the physical, not even love and friendship.

And these are the words Christ said to John which changed everything
“Do not be afraid.
I am the Alpha and the Omega. I encompass everything.
The alphabet, all human learning, everything that happened, is happening, can happen, and will happen, is in my hands.
I am the Living One.
And I see you. I control your life, and I will control your death.”

John gains strength. The powerless prisoner becomes a writer and a prophet with a gift for 21 centuries.

And everything can change in the desert, for there you have the best possible conditions for seeing God.

My thoughts have been full of Lolly Dunlap who left this life on the 8th of September. We met weekly almost exactly 8 years ago during a difficult season of my life. We met to pray, study Scripture, and talk–i.e. me soaking in her wisdom and loving spirit.

Frederick Buechner had this description of a vocation, “The vocation God calls you to is where your deep joy and the world’s deep need intersect.” 


I think the same can be said of a good and successful business idea. Find out how your skills, talents, and interests, what you could have fun doing, can somehow intersect with and serve the world’s deep need. No one can meet all the world’s needs. So discover people’s real needs in an niche which interests you and turns you on. Meet that need. Earn your living–plus–in that area.


So a business, ideally, should be an exchange of blessings. The business owner blesses the customer with his or her skills or products. The customer, in return, leaves cash–and good will.


When I seek God’s direction in our business, one thing I always seem to hear him say, is “Think bigger.” I think of how he told Abraham to look up, and count the stars…

I own a business, a small publishing company, and since I got into business 4 years ago, in my forties, with no previous training or experience, I need to run it by prayer. Which I do. Successfully when I remember to pray, stressfully when I do not.