{"id":3183,"date":"2023-11-22T09:19:21","date_gmt":"2023-11-22T14:19:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=3183"},"modified":"2023-11-22T09:19:21","modified_gmt":"2023-11-22T14:19:21","slug":"the-spirit-guides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/22\/the-spirit-guides\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spirit Guides"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here<\/a>

During the month of November, we\u2019re taking a look at 21 essential activities of the Holy Spirit, who represents God\u2019s presence in and through every follower of Jesus.<\/em>
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\u201cDo you want to know the secret of a long life?\u201d
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That\u2019s the question Michael Gartner\u2019s 95-year-old father asked him one day, seemingly out of the blue, while he was driving his parents.\u00a0 \u00a0
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\u201cI guess so,\u201d replied Gartner, former president of NBC News, who recalled the conversation in a 2006 memoir in USA Today<\/em>.\u00a0 \u201cNo left turns,\u201d said his father.\u00a0 \u201cWhat?\u201d Gartner replied.\u00a0 \u201cNo left turns,\u201d his dad repeated.\u00a0
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The elder Gartner went on to report that he and his wife, who was then 88 years old, had read an article that most car accidents involving senior citizens happened because they made ill-advised left turns in front of oncoming traffic.\u00a0 Aging often diminishes depth perception.\u00a0 \u201cSo your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn.\u201d\u00a0
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Gartner\u2019s dad had long since given up driving.\u00a0 He acted as navigator while his wife sat behind the wheel.\u00a0 Neither had a very keen sense of direction.\u00a0 \u201cBut it seemed to work,\u201d remembers Michael.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the revelation that his parents never made a left turn came as something of a shock.
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\u201cYou\u2019re kidding!\u201d he said, turning to his mother for confirmation.\u00a0 \u201cYour father is right,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWe make three rights.\u00a0 It works.\u201d\u00a0
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When you think about it, three consecutive right turns will indeed point you in the same direction as a single left turn.\u00a0 But then his mother added, \u201cExcept when your father loses count.\u201d
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Gartner laughed so hard he almost drove off the road.\u00a0 \u201cLoses count<\/em>?\u201d he asked.\u00a0 \u201cYes,\u201d his father admitted, \u201cthat sometimes happens.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not a problem.\u00a0 You just make seven rights, and you\u2019re OK again.\u201d\u00a0
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Michael couldn\u2019t resist. \u201cDo you ever go for 11?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cNo,\u201d said his dad, \u201cif we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day.\u201d
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If you get behind the wheel of your car today, you\u2019ll probably make your own share of right turns.\u00a0 And left ones, too.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t guarantee that at any given moment you\u2019ll know exactly where you\u2019re going.
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Guidance is one of the central concerns of walking with God.\u00a0 How do we know that we\u2019re heading in the right direction?\u00a0 Can anyone ever be sure they\u2019re pursuing the right vocation, marrying the right person, and investing their time and energy in the right pursuits?
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There\u2019s a cartoon in which two men, dressed in rags and half crazed from thirst, happen upon a table in the middle of the desert.\u00a0 Four individuals in lab coats are sitting there.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019re saved!\u201d exclaims one of the men.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a panel of experts!\u201d\u00a0
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We won\u2019t, however, find our way through this world by means of expert opinion.\u00a0 That\u2019s the Holy Spirit\u2019s job.\u00a0\u00a0
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The prophet Isaiah points out that God\u2019s people have been gifted with an extraordinary onboard navigation system:
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\u201cWhether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, \u2018This is the way; walk in it\u2019\u201d (Isaiah 30:21).\u00a0 The inner voice of the Spirit, that whisper that helps us discern where God wants us to be headed, is better than GPS.
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There\u2019s one caveat, however.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit\u2019s guidance system doesn\u2019t work when you\u2019re sitting in your car, parked in the driveway, waiting for God to send you a text with a detailed map and full set of instructions concerning the next 40 years of your life.
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That message is never going to come.
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Guidance arrives when we\u2019re moving.\u00a0 And it sometimes comes one turn at a time.\u00a0 As Isaiah points out, it\u2019s when <\/em>we\u2019re turning to the right or to the left that we hear God\u2019s voice.
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God\u2019s directions may come to us through a variety of sources and circumstances.\u00a0 As Dallas Willard points out in his exceptional book Hearing God<\/em>, our call is to prayerfully listen for his voice, study Scripture diligently, and learn from those who have gone before us.\u00a0
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All of those activities are on display in one of the lynchpin moments of the early church, a story which is reported in Acts chapter 15.\u00a0
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A Who\u2019s Who of New Testament leaders \u2013 including Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and Jesus\u2019 brother James, who leads the Jerusalem church \u2013 have gathered in that city to discern God\u2019s will concerning the most urgent question of the day:\u00a0 Do Gentiles have to become Jews in order to follow Jesus?\u00a0
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Emotions run high.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot at stake.\u00a0
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The assembled group hears personal stories from the mission field, vividly reported by Paul and his co-workers.\u00a0 Peter tells the story of how God led him to preach the Good News to Gentiles in the first place.\u00a0 James quotes key texts from the Old Testament \u2013 scriptures that clearly seem to be opening the door for everyone in the world to have unfettered access to Jesus.\u00a0
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When all is said and done, a consensus emerges.\u00a0 The Jerusalem Council concludes that Gentiles do not have to jump through the formal hoop of Judaism in order to become disciples.\u00a0 Acts 15 is one reason why followers of Jesus meet on Sundays in churches instead of on Saturdays in synagogues.\u00a0
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When it\u2019s time to announce this epic moment of discernment to the whole Mediterranean world, it\u2019s worth noting how their formal statement begins: \u201cIt seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us\u2026\u201d (Acts 15:28).
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This is spiritual collaboration.\u00a0
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As we surrender our deliberations and discussions as best we can to the Spirit\u2019s oversight, what emerges is something that honors both our voices and God\u2019s voice.\u00a0
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So put your life in drive.\u00a0 Tell God that you\u2019re listening.\u00a0
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And be sure that whether you\u2019re turning to the right or to the left, God\u2019s Spirit will always be waiting for you at the next intersection.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here During the month of November, we\u2019re taking a look at 21 essential activities of the Holy Spirit, who represents God\u2019s presence in and through every follower of Jesus.\u00a0\u201cDo you want to know the secret of a long life?\u201d\u00a0That\u2019s the question Michael Gartner\u2019s 95-year-old father asked him one day, seemingly out of… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3184,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,352],"class_list":["post-3183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-guidance","tag-holy-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3183"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3185,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3183\/revisions\/3185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}