A Personal Reflection On Promptings from the Holy Spirit

About eighteen years ago, when I first became a Christian, I began to get involved in learning what the Bible taught, and I tried to become regular at having a daily “quiet time” with God, although I was inconsistent at best. I remember, however, in those early days of the faith how tender I was to the Holy Spirit, often tediously taking notes of sermons, soaking up every morsel of biblical information I could possibly obtain, as well as often responding to sermons by going to the altar and confessing sins. I, also, recall how I had such an intense desire for God to use me and to do something amazing with my life, and that would often result in my involvement in various ministries of the local church.

One of the most vivid memories I have of God working in my life in those early years of following Christ was his Holy Spirit, on various occasions, prompting me to act in some specific way. I recall one such instance of God intensely prompting me to pray for a dear friend who, at the time, was away from the Lord. I shared the prompting with several of my other friends, and we committed to pray for him for several days, and he soon after came back to the Lord, and resubmitted himself to Christ. I also remember, when I lived in Jacksonville, how God impressed me to witness to a stranger carrying groceries and how he came to trust Christ, through a bizarre series of events. I know there were several other occasions I clearly remember of how God brought to my mind things to say when I was encouraging a believer, preaching a sermon, or witnessing to an unbeliever. Unfortunately, my promptings of the Holy Spirit began to diminish as I became more educated in doctrine.

This is not to downplay the importance of doctrine in a believer’s life and faith, because it is foundational to his health, but when knowledge begins to puff one up, the learning of doctrine can be devastating. The problem in my own life was my reading of men who valued the Scriptures so much that they thought any adherence to something subjective was an attack on Scripture itself. The tragic thing is that I not only became convinced of its teaching; I became closed to the working of the Holy Spirit in my life. That is not to say that the Holy Spirit did not do anything else in my life during this period, nor does it mean that I received no promptings from the Holy Spirit. In fact, I continued to receive convictions of sin through the Holy Spirit and the preaching of Scriptures and other believers; I continued to be moved to action at different times in my Christian life, but I always dismissed these occurrences as non-subjective, because they were in some way connected to the Word of God.

I am a pastor of a church in Atlanta now, and God has been teaching me some amazing truths. This morning on the way back from studying at my favorite coffee shop I confessed to God my lack of tenderness and sensitivity to the person and work of his Holy Spirit these past few years. I confessed that during this time I had even rationalized away the authenticity of some of the experiences I described above. I admitted that I had squandered many opportunities for God to work in my life, because I erroneously concluded that my sensitivity to those promptings was a danger to the sufficiency of Scriptures in my life. I confessed that I now believe that God primarily speaks to believers through the Scriptures, but often through other prophetic revelations, as well.

Now, some of you who read this (all two of you) might have agreed with everything I have written up to this point, but now you would disagree with my classification of these promptings as prophetic revelations. That is okay, I guess, but it is important that you are, at least, open to God’s workings and promptings in your life. But, more on this later…