Understanding God’s will can be really difficult, so for the next few days, let’s use the word S.H.A.P.E. as an acrostic to help us.

S represents your spirit.

Your regenerated spirit is the part of you that’s capable of connecting with God and responding to Him. The Bible says: ‘People who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things’ (1 Corinthians 2:14-15 NLT). You can know something in your spirit without understanding it in your brain. It sounds strange, but it isn’t really, because ‘you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things’ (1 John 2:20 NKJV).

Sometimes when you’re reading the Bible, a Scripture leaps off the page and you ‘know’ it’s God speaking to you and giving you direction. At the time it might not make sense to you, but it resonates in your spirit as being right. We use different words to describe this experience, such as ‘a leading’ or ‘a prompting’. We won’t always get it right – even the most mature Christians get it wrong sometimes. God spoke to Samuel the prophet four different times before Samuel finally recognised His voice. Just as we exercise to make our muscles stronger, we must also exercise our spirits to make them sharper and more sensitive to God: ‘Solid food is for those who are mature, who through training have the skill to recognise the difference between right and wrong’ (Hebrews 5:14 NLT).

What Now?

Make a note today of any moments when you feel God prompting you about something, big or small. Try to be as sensitive to His gentle nudges as you would be to a firm push in a particular direction.