Hearing God’s Voice, Part 5: Sails Up!

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CONSECRATION

Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. 

Jesus, I belong to you.

I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.

Jesus, we belong to you. 

Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen. 

THE WORD OF THE LORD

A good friend of mine recently took me sailing. I was amazed at what happened when the sails had no wind to work with and then at what happened when an unseen wind filled the sails!

Moving a sailboat without wind is hard work and may require putting oars in the water and breaking a sweat. But when the sails are full of wind? The boat, by design, cuts across the water and gets where it intends to go. A sailboat works with the wind; it doesn’t move by its own power.

Let’s call the ministry of Jesus that has been entrusted to us “sails-up ministry.” We live with our “sails up,” as Jesus did. When the wind of God’s Spirit blows and we sense God moving in a situation, we go with that wind, partnering with what the Father is already doing in someone’s life. We move the story forward with our prayers, with a word of encouragement, or with an act of faith.

That impression I have that I should ask a question that wouldn’t normally be on my mind for a person? What if I assume, with my sails up, that the wind of the Spirit is blowing and I’m catching it? What if that image that flashed through my mind or that passage that feels unusual emerging in my thoughts is the Lord speaking to me?

These things can be a word of knowledge or a prophetic word that pierces through someone’s confusion and lets them know that God is near. I find that when I am open, without forcing something, and staying close to Jesus, all it takes for me to hear his voice for another is for me to say inside myself: Lord, my sail is up. Speak to me for that person.

Nine times out of ten, I sense something that may help that person in their unique journey with God.

In Livestream, Ivan Filby asks us to remember a time we gave someone we love a gift, and then he says this about spiritual gifts: “God is far more excited to give you the gifts of the Holy Spirit than you were to give your gift to your friend or family member. The problem is not that he doesn’t want to stream the Holy Spirit’s gifts through us; the problem is that we often don’t know how to receive them.”¹

Ignatius of Loyola called it “the help of souls.” I believe that receiving a word of knowledge for someone is a gift of the Spirit for the help of a soul. In fact, an entire family line can change from the first domino falling in someone’s life because someone had a word for them.

Once I had an impression to share something with my neighbor that felt more like a word from the Lord wrapped in a message of encouragement. I had rehearsed it a bit beforehand before I said it to him to make sure it didn’t sound odd or confusing.²

With my sails up, I shared it with him in a moment that the Lord had orchestrated. Within weeks, that neighbor came to Jesus along with his wife.

With my sails up, I learned how to hear God for someone else and to pray with greater listening, awareness of the Spirit’s leading, and, over time, greater accuracy. There is something very fun when you pray for someone and at the end they say, “You read my mail!” In other words, God was speaking to you as you became a listener and willing kingdom participant in prayer for someone.

PRAYER