The First Big Lesson

The first big lesson in the wake of the aborted-bride's flight into the night came as one of those "Why did I not see this?" moments.

The first big lesson in the wake of the flight into the night was this: There are gazillions of folks who claim to be Christians, who claim they have been Christians for years, yet really stink at being able to led by the Spirit of God. As this blog progresses, I hope to be able to add many tips and teachings that will help in remedying that, but in today's post I'm sticking pretty close to the question of why that took me by surprise.

Being led by the Spirit of God is pretty normal for me. I can look back over my life and see a few times when it was pretty shallow in its effects, but I honestly don't remember a time when His leading was completely absent.  Of course, it helps that I was saved the summer that I was 3 turning 4-years-old; I avoided a lot of lost and wandering time.

Here's my story:
The preschoolers were sitting on hard oak kiddie chairs arranged in a circle for VBS story time.  The instructor was sitting in front of a royal purple velour curtain that separated us from the first grade class. There were a couple pictures of Jesus in the room, the classics that everyone who ever stepped into a Protestant church during that era has seen. The teacher was saying that Jesus will take you to heaven when you die, but you have to ask Him. I totally trusted that truth, decided that asking Jesus to do that would be the smart thing to do, and so I did. It really was that simple. I doubt that the teacher ever had a clue that a soul had been saved in her class that day.

The Lord has never been far away. It was easy to be connected at the speed of a thought. Scripture says that "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them."  John 10:27-28a. That was a constant in my childhood. One day in third grade, (by now I was 8 and had been saved over half my life,) I heard an adult say something.  I don't remember the specific comment now, but I do remember my reaction, which was to think, 'But that's obvious! She must have really bad intuition.' The reaction was full of childish pride; I'd failed to discern that the insight which had come from the Holy Spirit and wasn't really my own, but it does show that being connected to God was usually natural and normal for me. It wasn't a Him and me; it was an us.  I thought it was like that for everyone.

Without a doubt, the best book I have ever read on How You Can Be Led by the Spirit of God is a book with that exact title by Kenneth E. Hagin.  Providentially, this book came across my path shortly before my son was born. I say 'providentially' because it is the very best book for child-rearing that I have ever read. (№ 2 is Hints on Child Training, by Trumbull).

Anyway, I knew that How You Can Be Led... was a good book. Nevertheless, I was surprised when I later encountered many people who described it as "revelatory." For me, that book had organized bits and pieces that I'd known 'intuitively." For me, (although there was new material,) the book had functioned mostly like taking my cigar box of snapshots and clippings of God's leading and organizing it into a useful, functioning scrapbook.  I was surprised by how many people not only had no scraps, but also had no cigar box!

Before my children were born, I'd sought the leading of the Lord primarily for the biggie questions—which college to apply to, who to marry, etc.  After the kids came, I was consciously and actively practicing hearing from God, even about little things like where to shop. (I can testify that I was finding the "perfect" item on the 70% off rack at a rate that beats all statistical probability!)

I made How to Be Led… a part of our homeschool curriculum. I wish I'd done more. It certainly merits being read through more than once, but scruples dictated that it not be counted as class time more than once, so we went on to other things. If I had a reset button, I wouldn't be so concerned about worldly scruples. My children know "how" to be led, but they could have used a lot more practice making a "habit" out of it.

It's good for me to be as conscious of God's leading as I am, but I certainly need to be even more aware. It totally escaped me that my son's betrothed was doubting her leading. Being aware of a Holy Spirit leading for oneself doesn't mean that others have it or are able to hold on to it.  It was a brutal lesson to discover that our runaway bride had floundered on that point. She had been the first to hear from God on the point of marriage, but she wasn't able to stay with it.  In my third post, I will explain a few of the reasons why.