What if....?

The human mind cannot be turned off; we go through the day thinking constantly -- not always the thoughts we want to be thinking, but nevertheless thinking.  Sometimes we find ourselves thinking about a person, a song, etc. that we cannot get out of our heads---Why am I thinking about this? we ask ourselves.

But what if....our thoughts come to us from someplace else.  We imagine that our minds are a closed system, that everything we think comes from within ourselves.  But what if that's not the case --- I'm just suggesting an idea here.  What if the thoughts come to us from someplace else?  What if our minds and spirits were exquisitely sensitive receiving stations, receiving signals from abroad?

We often see cartoons of little angels on one shoulder and little devils on the other, both whispering in the ears of the person about to be tempted to do evil.  But what if that were more true than funny?  If, for just one day, we were to entertain the concept of our minds being receiving stations rather than the station of origin, I wonder what difference it would make....

Instead of waking up thinking, "I want to do this today," or "I think I'll....,"  what if we woke up listening attentively to Another Voice.  What if we woke up in prayer, asking to be tuned in to the Voice of God, to the One who most cares about what happens to us today.   What if we learned to accept direction instead of directing our own lives?  What if we learned to discern the spirits, as St. John tells us, so that we come to recognize the voice of Jesus and reject the voice of Satan and his angels?

Jesus told his disciples that they were 'clean' because of the word He had "spoken" to them.  He also rejoiced with Peter that "flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven."  Clearly, Jesus expected that His Father would speak not only to Him but to others also.  And He was even more clear about the Holy Spirit speaking to us, leading us into all truth and revealing to us the secrets of the Father and the Son.

St. Paul was given his mission by a spoken word, just as he was taught the Gospel not by men, but by the Spirit:  I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.  I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ (Gal. 1:11-12).  Almost everything Paul did in his ministry was the result of revelation, not human direction:  Fourteen years later, I went up to Jerusalem....I went in response to a revelation....(Gal.2:1-2).

Reading Scripture is a good beginning to opening our spirits to revelation, to the Voice of God speaking in our hearts.  But it is in response to the spoken word -- the Rhema -- that we are given direction (other than general guidelines, of course).  We need to know Scripture in order to recognize the Voice of God; otherwise, we will always wonder where this idea is coming from.  But Scripture without prayer, without the Spirit of the Lord enlightening the words for us, will not set us on our feet and direct us each day into the will of God for us that day.

Once we can accept that God wants to speak to us and direct us daily, life becomes a great and glorious adventure in hearing the plans He has for us, more than we ourselves can ask or imagine or dare to believe!