Category Archives: Sensing
What is Respondability?
Rating: Inspirational
I am making up a new word: Respondability
Let me explain.
God keeps showing me, impressing on my thoughts, this idea that we need to pay attention to how we respond when He tries to get our attention. Are we responding?
If you want to develop a relationship with someone, then when they call you, you want to take their call. You respond to their desire to connect with you.
In the same way, God reaches out to us every day. You feel a nudge in your heart. Or your eyes are drawn to something specific that makes you smile (or causes you concern). You feel this tug of love toward someone or you spontaneously feel like smiling at a neighbor who is walking by. These are examples of His desire to connect with us. Sometimes He draws you to spend time in prayer or worship or meditation on His beautiful creation. Sometimes you feel the nudge to just sit still and BE. There’s so many ways He reaches out to us.
Some might refer to this as intuition and that would be right, but it is much more personal than just intuition. At least, it is for me. It is God inviting me into relationship with Him.
He has been encouraging me that when we respond to His nudges, His direction, His drawing, then He will take care of what we generally consider our “responsibilities”. We can rest in Him. Just like a little child with a good, caring father. We don’t have to have it all figured out. We can ask for help and He will respond and help us. For more on this, read this post about asking for help.
He keeps telling me, impressing on my mind and heart, that life is more about our “respondability” than our “responsibility”. Our ability to respond to Him, no matter what. That takes time and cultivation. If you are not used to recognizing His nudges and direction, you need to take time to learn to perceive them. Once you begin to perceive them, you need to respond to them. Follow them and see where they go. At some point, you need to transfer your trust from your own “common sense” to following His direction effortlessly. Stop second guessing yourself and just go with His flow. It never ceases to amaze me how things work out so much better when I do this.
We focus so much on our “responsibilities” as adults. There’s so much we have to keep track of – doctors appointments, car tune ups, household chores, career development, parenting, marriage issues, friendships, etc. It boggles the mind. And overwhelms us … and causes us stress.
However, if we will let go of our sense of “responsibilities” and instead choose to develop our “respondability”, He can guide us moment-by-moment, day-by-day. All our responsibilities will get taken care of as we respond to Him and His guidance.
Pretty “out-there”, huh?
It takes a lot of practice – this “following” thing. We are so hard-headed and stubborn and unwilling to trust someone we cannot see. But as we choose to deny ourselves and actually FOLLOW Him, it works. It really does. And it’s a lot less stressful than the other option.
So, what do you think? Should I submit this word to Merriam-Webster? Maybe create a YouTube video about it, make it go viral and then everyone will start using this word? 🙂
The concept behind it is definitely worth sharing. Try it out and let me know how it works for you. I think you’ll be glad you did!
Spiritual Senses – Which one is your strongest?
Rating: Educational
When I began to perceive the spiritual realm, I wasn’t really sure how I “knew” the things I knew. Part of me was convinced that when I sensed something that it was really there and part of me tried to rationalize away the feeling and just dismiss it. We have all probably experienced that.
I learned from Arthur Burk in his series, Nurturing the Spirit, that our soul tends to rationalize away the impressions we get in our spirit because they don’t necessarily make logical sense. For instance, when I was a child and I sensed that there was something scary lurking at the end of the hall or under my bed, my natural eyes could turn on the light and see that there’s nothing there in the visible realm. “See, you’re just making things up!” my mind would tell me. Or as most children are told by adults, “There’s no boogey-man under the bed or in the closet. See?” They open the closet and look under the bed just to convince you. But as soon as they leave, what do you believe if you can still “feel” them in the room? Does it mean you are crazy?
Anyway, during my studies of trying to figure out how this “sensing” the unseen realm stuff works, I came across a book. I can’t recall the title, but the concept has stayed with me. The author suggested that since we have 5 senses in our physical body, perhaps we have 5 senses in our spiritual body. Since that time, I have met people who have experienced the unseen realm through their spiritual senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell or taste. Then there’s that “sixth sense” where you just have an inner knowing, but you can’t exactly explain why. Either your senses are picking something up and your brain comes to a conclusion so quickly that you are not conscious of it or perhaps the Holy Spirit gives you the information through a word of knowledge. Somehow you just know.
Some people who “see” in the spirit say they can see the unseen realm with their natural eyes just like they would look at you or me. Blake Healy in his book, The Veil, describes his sight that way. For me, I “see” things in my mind while my natural eyes are looking at the location where I sense a presence. It’s like I’m seeing in my mind the exact same picture I see with my natural eyes except there is an added element there, such as an angel. I learned this (or was strengthened in it) through Gary Oates’ teaching called “Open My Eyes, Lord”. Both of these materials are listed on the Resources tab above. In Blake’s book, he says he encourages people to increase their perception through whatever way they normally use to “hear” from God. Is it through pictures in their mind or a feeling or hearing words in their thoughts? Whichever way God speaks to them is a sense they have learned to trust, so he says that’s a good place to start when learning to sense the unseen realm. His book has exercises to help you “practice”.
I don’t often hear things, but I have met people who do. Touch is the one I guess I relate to the most – I “feel” things often, everywhere I go. I am also very sensitive to the presence of the Lord and often “feel” His presence. Taste and smell are the most unusual ones – not too many people mention these. I have smelled anointing oil in a service that was thick with the Presence of the Holy Spirit. I have read of people who get a bad “taste” in their mouth when certain demonic spirits are nearby. I’ve never experienced that one, have you?
One other thing I realized recently – I think we sense things differently in our spirit versus in our soul. For instance, my soul can easily detect anything that is evil or unclean. And it usually freaks me out – my soul doesn’t know what to do with the information. However, my spirit does know what to do – so I have to remember to consciously choose to connect with my spirit and then use my authority to remove anything evil that’s bothering me (in my home or near me in a public place).
I also have very sensitive discernment when it comes to dealing with people. That’s a gift in my spirit. When I look in someone’s eyes, 9 times out of 10 I can see their soul. My gift is emotional healing so I see clearly their soul wounds. I can often also see their gifting or original design from the Father. Sometimes I can also discern if there are evil spirits oppressing the person. As you can imagine, I have to be very cautious not to reveal all this information on my face when I’m introduced to someone I’ve never met. I get it all pretty quickly. Being in a party full of people can sometimes be pretty overwhelming to my senses, receiving all this information at once.
So, how do you sense the unseen realm? As I shared on another post, what helped me was finding someone who sensed things using a different method than I did. We would go places and share what we were each aware of. By comparing notes, we grew exponentially both in confidence and in accuracy in being able to identify what we were experiencing. So if you naturally “see” in the unseen realm, go find someone who “feels” and vice versa. You’ll be glad you did.
