Can God Really Help You?

      “Paul and his companions travelled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” Acts 16:6-10

      “And now, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there. I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.” Acts 20:22-23

      “When I returned to Jerusalem and was praying at the temple, I fell into a trance and saw the Lord speaking.’Quick!' he said to me. 'Leave Jerusalem immediately, because they will not accept your testimony about me.' Acts 22:17-18

In the above scriptures Paul was directed by God. These are only a few examples of when Paul and other Biblical characters were warned by God about certain dangers or given instructions on where to go or what to do.

God, through his Holy Spirit, gives guidance and warnings to people today, just as he did in Biblical times. It is important that we learn to listen to these warnings. Before his arrest, Jesus told his disciples that he was leaving and that he would send the Holy Spirit to counsel, comfort and guide them. That same Holy Spirit will counsel, comfort and guide us today; we just have to learn to listen.

You may be someone who has learned to listen to the Holy Spirit, but I am aware that many people have no idea how to listen to God or the Holy Spirit. In fact, many people do not believe it is possible to hear from God. As someone who does hear God’s voice, I have faced many unbelieving faces as I have spoken about the things that God has said to me. On more than one occasion I have been asked ‘Do you hear other voices in your head?’ However, it is very important to learn to listen to God because he will guide you and protect you.

Many people think that God doesn’t speak to them. He does, they just don’t listen. This may be refusal, ignorance or other noise drowning out his voice. Many people hear God, but think it is instinct or intuition.

We often hear the words ‘instinct’ or ‘intuition’ used, but what exactly are they and why do some people seem to have better instincts or intuition than others? As we grow from being a small child we learn many things about our world, through education and experience. As we become older we become (hopefully) wiser and we learn to apply that wisdom in our lives, both professionally and personally. Some people are better at this than others, learning faster, working harder and achieving more. We particularly see this exhibited in the workplace, where some people are better at their jobs than others, are promoted more quickly and earn more money. However, when I refer to instincts and intuition I am not talking about applying learned wisdom. I am talking about something completely different. Sometimes we hear it referred to as ‘a feeling’, “I had a feeling that you would call” and sometimes we talk about ‘just knowing’, “I just knew you were in trouble”. Let me give you an example. As we grow up, we are taught to safely cross roads: this is learned wisdom. However, say one day you are about to cross a road and for no reason you suddenly get the urge to step back and wait a second, all of a sudden a car comes speeding round the corner and you realise that if you had stepped out it would have hit you: this is intuition, or instinct. Most of us, if we stop and think about it, can describe strange incidents where rationally we could not have known what we did. A common example is just knowing who is on the other end of the telephone (more common before caller display!) or thinking about a friend you haven’t seen for a while and bumping into them that day.

I have experienced this many times in my own life. One year my husband and I were due to go on holiday and my husband was working late on the Friday evening to clear his desk. His car was parked in a nearby multi storey car park. At about nine o’clock he telephoned to say that he was ready to leave and was about to walk up to get his car. Suddenly, I knew with absolute certainty that his car had been stolen and that he should not walk up to the car park. I immediately told him to wait and that I would drive down, collect him and drive him to the car park. He told me not to be so stupid, or words to that affect, but the feeling was so strong that I knew I could not take no for an answer, I was adamant that I was collecting him. It was a strange feeling as I drove down because I was so certain the car had gone but I felt completely calm, knowing I was doing the right thing. To cut a long story short, I drove him around a totally deserted car park and when he said “the car’s gone” I just thought “yes I know”. At the time, I was what I would call a lapsed Christian and, to be perfectly honest with you, I thought that I was a bit spookily psychic. I now know that it was God, through the Holy Spirit, warning me. I also believe that he warned me, not because of the stolen car, but because my husband would have been in danger walking around the deserted car park looking for his car.

As my relationship with God has matured, I have learnt to recognise ‘the still small voice’ and the communication of the Holy Spirit. Knowing what I now know, I can look back on my life and see times where God spoke to me and times where he protected me or people that I love, although at the time I did not recognise it for what it was. This is the great thing about God, even when you ignore or disregard him he still loves you and seeks to help you. God talks to everyone; the problem is everyone does not listen.

God is a spirit being and he exists on earth as the Holy Spirit. Humans consist of body, soul and spirit. The body is our actual physical body and our soul consists of our mind, will and emotions. The spirit is the part of us that relates to the Spirit of God and through which we communicate on a different level. Since we are all part spirit, we can also sometimes communicate with each other on this level, which is why you will sometimes instinctively know what another person is feeling or thinking, and why you can sometimes know when someone is, for example, on the other end of a ringing telephone. The spiritual dimension is occupied by other beings, apart from God. The Bible tells us that there are both angels and demons. When Jesus was on earth he spent a significant amount of time freeing people from unclean spirits and demonic influences. I believe that the devil is real and that he seeks to do us harm, however God wants to protect us. God wants to protect you. His spirit will seek to warn you by speaking to your spirit, but you have to learn to recognise it, and then listen to it.

So, how do you learn to discern when the Holy Spirit is speaking to you or warning you? I do believe that God will have spoken to all of you at different times, so first of all pray a quick prayer asking God to show you times when he spoke to you and let him remind you of past events when he was involved. As I have already said, it will be a ‘knowing’ or a ‘feeling’. It may be accompanied by a sense of urgency, but God does not give you a spirit of fear, so if you feel terror or total panic, then it won’t be God. Sometimes it may seem like you hear a still small voice. Once you learn to recognise it, you must then learn to follow it. The biggest obstacle is trying to reason or rationalise your way out of it. Another problem is letting other people reason you out of it, because they will not have felt what you felt, so will just think you are being silly. I have to confess that there have been many times when I have ignored the instinct and it has always turned out to be a mistake. These days I try very hard to follow it, having learned the hard way. I was recently listening to a programme on the God TV Channel, where they were talking about the many testimonies of Christians who were delayed going to work in the Twin Towers on September 11th by Holy Spirit promptings to take some time to do something that they would not ordinarily do. By listening to the still small voice their lives were saved.
 
I have found that the more I listen to the Holy Spirit, the more finely tuned my hearing becomes, a bit like exercising a previously unused muscle. If we fail to listen to the voice, we usually find out why we should have done because we see what happens or goes wrong. However it is harder to understand if we do listen. Sometimes we do find out what the problem was and we can see where God was intervening to protect or help. However, often, whatever was going to happen does not, so we never find out the reason why we were steered away from something. It takes time to develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit.  As you get in the habit of listening to him, you will start to hear from him more and more. Eventually you will have confidence that you did the right thing, even if you can’t see why. Listening to, and obeying the Holy Spirit is usually accompanied by a sense of peace. As I have learnt to follow the urgings of the Holy Spirit I have found life a lot easier and less stressful.

Jesus came to give us an abundantly blessed life and I have discovered that, as well as warning me, the Holy Spirit will tell me about good things that will bless me. A couple of years ago we were planning a three week holiday to Florida with our extended family. We had decided when we would go and where we would stay, however every time I went online to actually book the holiday I felt the Holy Spirit say “No”. My family were getting impatient with me, worried that the flights would sell out or the accommodation fill up. I was feeling a bit stupid and struggling to explain why I wasn’t going ahead with the booking, but the feeling not to book was very strong. (At this point I had all sorts of scenarios running round in my head, including the possibility that maybe that flight was going to crash!) On Easter Sunday I again went on to the website, input our desired holiday and did a double take when the price came up. There was a 15% discount if you booked that day, saving us over £2000. The Holy Spirit said “now you can book it”. Can you imagine how upset we would have been if we had already booked and hadn’t been able to save that money?  By learning to listen and obey I was blessed.

God is speaking to you, start listening!