When My Understanding Has Not Caught Up
Learning to follow the Spirit
One of the first things I remember being impressed with was a simple thought:
“My spirit already knows what my mind cannot comprehend.”
It just came to me in a full sentence. I didn’t exactly know what to do with it, so I challenged it against Scripture. I have been considering it ever since.
I understood it as an invitation to pay attention to the spiritual man. Much of my life had been spent responding to what my physical senses brought before me. I could see a circumstance, feel its pressure, and immediately begin deciding what it meant and what I should do. Yet I was coming to understand that my natural experience did not tell me everything about the life I was living.
I belong to God. His Spirit dwells within His people. If I desire to be led by Him, there must be room in my life to receive His direction before I have explained everything to my own satisfaction.
Paul writes that God reveals through His Spirit what human wisdom cannot discover by itself. He distinguishes our spirit from the Spirit of God and explains that we have received the Spirit from God so that we might understand what He has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2:10–16)
Paul makes the distinction plainly: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14, KJV)
That helps explain why I cannot make my present understanding the measure of everything God can teach me. If the things of His Spirit are spiritually discerned, then learning to receive His instruction is part of learning to follow Him. My understanding can grow through relationship with Him. I can receive, attend, and learn. I do not have to make my present comprehension the boundary of what He is able to teach me.
This came into focus around the time I began thinking differently about Job’s uprightness. I pictured a man whose life was oriented toward God, with the spiritual and eternal taking precedence over the natural. That understanding made me examine the direction from which I was approaching my own life. (Job 1:1–8)
Was I looking toward God through the demands of my circumstances, or allowing my relationship with Him to shape how I understood those circumstances?
The difference matters immensely.
Paul describes the desires of the flesh opposing the Spirit, and the Spirit opposing the flesh. He tells us to walk by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:16–17) I recognize that conflict when I want my own way, when fear begins directing my choices, or when my first concern is defending what I regard as mine.
There is a will within me that must yield. The struggle seems ancient: my will against another. I know whose will I want to prevail. No wonder it is a struggle—it is me fighting against the will of the Almighty.
I can ask God to help me carry out what I have decided, but am I willing to let Him change my decision? Can I bring Him my desires with enough openness to discover that He is leading me somewhere I had not considered?
That is where surrender becomes practical.
Romans tells us that God’s children are led by His Spirit, and that His Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are His children. (Romans 8:14–16) There is relationship here, reaching into the inward person. I want to become more attentive to it.
How do I begin?
I can speak with Him and give attention to His Word. I can become quiet enough to consider what is moving within me instead of immediately following the pressure of the moment. When an impression comes, I can bring it before Him and examine it in the light of Scripture. Paul tells us to test everything and hold fast to what is good. (1 Thessalonians 5:19–22)
If my understanding runs contrary to what He has revealed, I need to reconsider my understanding. I am learning to follow Him, and learning includes being willing to receive correction.
The direction of that learning becomes visible in my life. Paul describes the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22–25) As I surrender, I want those qualities to grow in the way I speak, the way I respond, and the way I treat the person before me.
This brings me back to our scroll.
We have imagined our natural lives unfolding upon one side and God’s eternal purpose upon the other, with Christ Himself holding them together. I can become so occupied with what is happening upon the surface I can see that I forget the relationship bearing the whole account.
Turning the scroll reminds me to give my attention to Him. I want what He reveals through His Spirit to shape what I do within this physical world. As I yield my will, the eternal purpose begins finding expression in an ordinary human life.
God may bring something to my attention through Scripture, through another person, or in a quiet moment of prayer. What matters is recognizing His direction and becoming willing to follow it. Jesus described His sheep as hearing His voice, being known by Him, and following Him. (John 10:27)
I want to learn that life with Him.
I have already experienced something of surrender in prayer that reaches beyond what I know how to explain. It has brought me love, peace, and joy. Now I am considering how that willingness can extend into everything else: my thoughts, my choices, my relationships, and the use of the body He has given me.
My understanding has more to learn. I can bring it with me as I walk, allowing Him to renew it rather than insisting that it already knows the whole way. Scripture calls us toward that renewal and toward offering ourselves to God. (Romans 12:1–2)
Perhaps that is where I can begin today. I can listen, consider His Word, and surrender the choice before me. As I follow, I may come to understand something I could not comprehend when the invitation first arrived.
If I want to be led by the Spirit, I must become willing to follow.