HARNESSING THE POWER OF INTUITION AND DISCERNMENT
As we continue to explore ‘spirit soul and body,’ we recognise that this is a complex and yet very interesting dimension of looking at human nature and the question could be why? There are several ways of looking at it but it may simply be due to the fact that there will always be more than what meets the obvious. In some instances, it is the perceptions we have with respect to the way we enter our worldview that projects a reflection on other perspectives hence we need to be open.
Many will agree that they have encountered experiences and situations in life where they felt a sense seemingly from nowhere telling them that something is not right and may not have had any factual information to explain where it was coming from and yet it came with so much conviction in their inner being.
One area that continues to fascinate my interintra-personal development is the realisation that not everything that I know needs to always come or originate from my conscious logical interpretation or rational sense making as a black and white process. This to a large extent has something to do with how I come to realise that I have a knowing and that knowing may draw from various sources. We enter most regularly the world around us through the direct exchange of our fundamental senses which come by seeing, touching, smelling, tasting and hearing. Notwithstanding, we can attest overtime that there is actually another level of entering the world and this entry point is not always visibly logical but will nevertheless permit us to derive some understanding on what is going on drawing deep from the existential awareness of our reality. In exploring intuition, a concept one can explore from various dimensions including the social, psychological and the spiritual dimension, it will not be in the interest of this platform to get entangled in one or the other because life is complex enough to can separate how parts of our lives intersect to create a reality of our human experiences. Intuition implies that one has some form of knowledge that seemingly appears to be in the state of our consciousness and yet is not bearing any obvious deliberation. It is a deeper faculty that is present in our sense of being that draws understanding of people, situations and or decisions on perceptions, instincts, hunches and discernment without active consciousness of our rational being.
The ability to discern is largely based on our intuitive faculty and this is a gift from God that can with consistent practice become a spiritual skill that requires responsibility on our part as we apply it in life. Intuition is thereforea blessed divine enablement imparted to us when God declared that the creation of mankind will be different from all other creations for this ‘particular one’ will take after the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Since God who is a Spirit planted a divine capacity for man to function with the gift of intuition, we therefore have a conscience that allows us to even separate between good and evil.
Intuition as well as discernment is a spiritual gift operating through our ability to surrender to the training and ministration of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is often the One giving mankind the hunches and intuitive insights to perceive hence we can say ‘I heard something inside me telling me to do this and that’.
We also have the mind of God come through the Holy Spirit in us and by mediating in the Word of God and also by prayerfully engaging in the spirit realm. When we have the mind of God then we are able to “walk in the Spirit” and be led and guided into His truth in all matters of life (Galatians 5:16, 25).