So often I saw people around me who were feeling “God’s Call”, but didn’t know exactly how to put that into words or actions. They seemed to “pick” at their own random, from the pile of commonly recognized “ministries” or from the stack of needs of their local church, a job to do for God. This quickly became for them a kind of exhausting labor!

This has led many people to believe that if a three-meter-high angel with golden wings doesn’t appear before them, then it’s not God’s will being expressed, and you better do nothing.
And yet, we can see in the Bible that God sometimes speaks by sending angels, sometimes in a storm, sometimes in a gentle whisper… and sometimes even remaining in silence!

Intuitions : Intuitions: “It seemed good to me…”

In evangelical communities, we often hear the expression: “I have something on my heart”. 
I remember one day, when I was a young Christian, I explained to my pastor that I had set my heart on forming a team with the teenagers from the congregation to do street evangelism.

Cathy and I had just finished Bible school and were eager to serve. Then he said to me:

– Another victim of the “on my heart syndrome”.

When I looked confused, he said:

– Okay. I care about this, I care about that, I care about this … With God, you don’t care! You hear his voice and you obey.

I walked away a little disappointed, not knowing what to think, and especially not knowing what to do with my “desire” to serve.

Yet it’s interesting to note how Luke introduces his Gospel: “It seemed good to me, after having made exact inquiries into all these things from their origin, to set them out to you in writing in a continuous manner, excellent Theophilus, so that you may recognize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Anyway, it seems that one of the four Gospels was written not on the basis of revelation, but of an intuition!

One might imagine that if God led Luke to write this Gospel account, which is part of the canon of inspired books recognized by the entire Christian world, he must have had “at least” a vision, if not the apparition of an angel.

But no! God inspired Luke with a rather banal intuition. It would be nice if you could summarize my son’s life here, on earth.

This intuition must, of course, have found its way into the Greek doctor’s thoughts, and certainly been confirmed by others. Nevertheless, in the beginning, it was just a simple idea.

I sometimes imagine Luke chatting with Paul a few days after the shipwreck in Malta.

– You know, Paul, this time we almost didn’t make it.

– You’re exaggerating, Luc, I told you it would be all right.

– Anyway, Paul, this gave me an idea. We shouldn’t die without leaving a written record of everything that happened when Jesus was with us here on earth. And then, one day, why not, tell what happened afterwards, with Peter, and also with Stephen, and why not write a “saga” of your travels. We could call it the adventures of Paul & Timothée…

– Allright, Luc, you’re out of your mind! First of all, the title! Pierre and the others won’t like it, and anyway, I’m not even sure they read the letters I send them!

Please, just forgive my freedom and don’t throw stones at me !

The fact is that initially simple feelings can turn out to be a directive from the Lord. Would we allow ourselves to believe that Luke, too, was suffering from « on my heart syndrome »?

For much of my Christian life, I’ve wanted to reject intuitions. Often considering them too be too carnal, if not “occult”, I distrusted them.

Yet sometimes they became so persistent that I could no longer ignore them.

So, of course, you can’t just jump in at the first idea that pops into your head. However, over time I’ve learned to discern which of my thoughts are worthy of interest and to pursue them.

This has sometimes been the beginning of great adventures with the Lord

We can see this principle stated in the very definition of the word intuition:

It’s interesting to note what Henri Poincaré said: “It’s with logic that we prove, but with intuition that we find”.

It seems to me that this is often the way God leads us.

We have the intuition that He wants something from us. From there, we look for the “proof” that our intuition is well-founded.

The danger is that we sometimes set out on an intuition without really having thought through all the aspects. But if we take the trouble to do two or three basic checks, such as :

• Is it biblical?
• Does it correspond to what God would say generaly?
• Is it in line with what God has already asked of me?

For point number one, it shouldn’t take long if you’re an avid reader of the Bible.

For the second, it’s the same, but requires that your relationship with God enables you to recognize His voice. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me”.

Too many people today know a lot about God without really knowing Him in person. They quickly become “accusers” when you tell them about your desire to do something for God.

Finally, for the third point, I’d like to say that I don’t worship a weathervane.

So many times, when I was a pastor, I saw people who came to see me every two weeks and systematically started the conversation with a thundering “God told me!

The problem was, it seemed that God had changed his mind from one time to the next. God isn’t like that at all. Here’s how He defines Himself in His word: “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent. What he has said, will he not do? What he has declared, will he not carry out?” 
In the same way, Paul explains, “For God does not repent of his gifts and his calling.”

Christians need to break away from the belief that God wakes up every morning, sees you, and wonders what he’s going to do with you today!

Not only does God have a specific plan for you, he’s given you everything you need to make it to become a reality, right from the start.

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for peace and not for evil, to give you a future full of hope”.

“Before I formed you in your mother’s womb, I chose you; and before you were born, I consecrated you: I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” 

There is no such thing as a fortuitous event with God. Even before the foundation of the world, He had already prepared a plan for the redemption of mankind. He has a plan for every human being, a plan A, a plan B, a plan…

In order to know whether an intuition comes from God or not, one of the points that always attracts my attention is the persistence of that intuition.

I have dozens of ideas running through my head every day. They come and go… but sometimes one idea never leaves me. I fall asleep with it in the evening and wake up with it in the morning!

This often lasts until I decide to pay more attention to it. It’s not necessarily an “inspired” idea, but it’s worth checking out.

When I was 15, I started teaching sailing at the club where my mother was secretary. I discovered that I had a gift for explaining things to people, and that what’s more, I loved it! A few years later, I was teaching French in New Zealand and enjoying it too.

As soon as I was converted, I started sharing the Word of God, which led many people to call me an evangelist. In fact, I loved making people understand what the Bible said and how it could impact our lives. I’ve always loved sharing with people what I’m passionate about.

I went on to become a sailing and diving instructor, a leader trainer, a camp director… then an FLE (French as a Foreign Language) trainer, etc. Everyone agrees that I’m good at teaching.

… And the prophecy?

In 1991, when we were in Bible school, a prophetic ministry gave me a word about what God was calling me to do: teach the Lord’s word of faith and grace and raise up an army among his people.

5 years later, I met this ministry again at a conference. We didn’t know each other and hadn’t seen each other since school, but when he began prophesying for me again, he began by repeating the last sentence of the prophecy given at Bible school 5 years earlier.

To this day, my ministry is based on the gifts God gave me from my mother’s womb and the themes that ministry prophesied. I enjoy teaching, through my books, in Bible schools, in my relationships with the Christians I come into contact with, in the French courses I give or as part of my diving instructor training.

Has my ministry evolved? Of course it has! But over the years, I’ve seen this common thread running through the choices we make for our ministry and our family.

Mikaël REALE