Instinct

April 10, 2018

I was recently at a very large Christian Conference in Southern California. After singing at a workshop I began making my way back to my exhibit booth, which was almost a ten-minute walk. I had my ukulele and another heavy bag with me. I had planned to drop the items off with my sister who was helping me, change into some comfortable shoes (i.e. flip flops) and then make my way around to talk with some folks I wanted to discuss some projects with.

But something kept telling me to make my way over to one particular booth. I ignored this nudging. There was no one at that booth that I needed to chat with. The feeling continued to grow as my tired feet made their way into the exhibit hall. So, I gave in. I walked up to the booth and wham-o, there stood one of the people I wanted to connect with visiting that same booth. She was just getting ready to walk away but we were able to talk briefly, and it looks like we might be collaborating on some exciting new projects for both of us. Wow! Had I dropped my things off at my booth, I would have missed her. I also realized, I probably never would have found her later, had I not made the decision to stop.

Sometimes as women, it can be easy to ignore that voice within us. Even though we might know a decision is right, we hesitate.

Have you ever done that?

We can overthink decisions. Or, we delay taking action because we believe we have to pray even about the simplest decisions. “Do you want fries with your combo?” “Wait, I need to pray about that.”

Am I saying we shouldn’t pray to God to help us make good choices? Absolutely not! I believe that we should be talking to our Maker throughout the day, every day.

But I also believe God is guiding our steps. And we need to learn to trust our instincts that have been molded by God to direct our decisions and actions. Proverbs 2 assures us that God does give us wisdom.

“All wisdom comes from the Lord, and so do common sense and understanding. God gives helpful advice to everyone who obeys him and protects all of those who live as they should.”

We will always have difficult choices in life and some inner conflict about big decisions. But if we are in conversation and prayer with the Almighty, we give our minds time to be quiet to listen for God’s voice, we open our eyes, ears, and heart to be guided by scripture, then we can trust that instinct that God created within us. Let’s not make every decision harder than it must be. Can we stop overthinking and start trusting God is guiding us with our intuition?

And, by the way, I believe the correct decision is always to say yes to the fries!