The Spirit's Prompting

I went to lunch yesterday with a mama I helped counsel to choose life over abortion. Some time ago, we prayed together and she asked Jesus to be her Lord and Savior. She has become a dear friend, and I see her often. The baby she chose not to abort is now a year old. We hadn't seen each other in a couple of months, and she wanted to catch up with me. There had been a long period of her not responding to my texts. I was grateful she was reaching out now. Praying before meeting with her, I asked that God would lead me in whatever she needed to hear, or would help me listen in a way that helped her.

At lunch, I told her a story from my own life that had occurred only the week before. I had been prompted to express repentance to another person, not for something I had done, but for something I had thought. What made it stranger was the thought had occurred over twenty years ago. I had no idea why it popped into my mind. I told her the story to demonstrate the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, a subject I don't think we had ever before discussed. I felt she needed to hear that message. I don't know why my heart insisted I speak of it. Probably the Holy Spirit (again.)

Anyway, I told her I heard the prompting to ask forgiveness so loudly, it was almost audible. I fought it, because it made no sense, since my "sin" had only been a thought, not an action. The person never knew I had felt what I felt inside at the time. However, the thought was unkind, and unworthy of me. I was convinced by the incessant nagging of the Holy Spirit that I was to ask forgiveness of that person.  So I did.

My friend listened intently. Then her eyes watered, and she said, "Miss Vicky, there's something I need to tell you." She began crying, and told me she couldn't believe she was going to tell me, but my story hit a nerve. The Holy Spirit was convicting her. It was clearly something that had been gnawing at her soul, and I suspect the source of the period of silence from her in our friendship. So she told me.

It was a bombshell. I must admit it took me by surprise, and it must have been very hard for her to tell me. I am not sure I would have had her courage. We discussed the issue, from a Biblical perspective, and I hope the discussion brought about the beginning of healing. It led to a two-hour lunch with her asking very deep questions about God, including those old favorites, "Why does God allow so much evil?", "If God wants me to succeed, why doesn't He stop me at the moment of terrible sin?", "Who made God?", and so on. Nice easy questions. (Not.)

The waitress hovered nearby. She was listening. Two for one! I was getting an inkling that God had summoned me to this lunch for a purpose far beyond the delicious hot wings.

Then my friend told me about a situation where she had been terribly wronged. In response, she had said some hurtful things to another person. She had felt increasingly bad about it. The person deserved it, but she kept hearing a voice inside her saying she needed to apologize.

"I think that's the Holy Spirit prompting you," I told her.
"But if I apologize, I know this person will not respond well."
"You are not responsible for her response. You are only responsible for what God is telling you to do. What do you feel you need to apologize for?"
"I was disrespectful, and I cussed her out."
"Is that the person you want to be?" I asked.
"No."
"Then apologize for that. You are not condoning what she did, and you are not required to have a relationship with someone who is harming you. However,  if you behaved in a way that is not the person you want to be, that is where you ask forgiveness."

As she got out of the car, she told me, "I knew I needed to have lunch with you. That voice telling me to apologize has been bugging me for weeks, and eating at me."
 "Listen to it," I urged her.
"It's not easy," she said.
"Has it been easy disobeying God and living with the consequences?"
"No."
"Often what the Spirit requires of us is not easy, but I guarantee you will be blessed if you do what God is commanding you to do."

I prayed as I drove home. I felt as though I had failed her. If I had only reached out more often, perhaps I could have helped her avoid the terrible predicament she had landed in. However, if anyone needed to hear a message of God's guidance and forgiveness, it was her at that moment. I am not God, and if He chose not to stop her, I certainly could not have.

But it was a blessing to be the one who then held her hand, and reminded her of how true repentance and forgiveness lead to healing. How ironic that the very sins I had struggled with led to a greater understanding of the Holy Spirit speaking to me, and immediately in the wake, led me to tell of His prompting and power to another hurting soul.
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John 14:15 

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Luke 6:46 

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?

Romans 6:16

Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?

Matthew 7:21 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

James 1:22 

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

Isaiah 1:19 

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land;

Joshua 1:8 

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.