Wouldn’t it be awesome if walking by the power of God’s holy spirit came with a super-obvious indicator?
Okay, bear with me on a short detour into mom-land: when my son was a newborn and we were still figuring out his cues, one of the honest-to-goodness LIFESAVERS were wetness-indication diapers. Because, look…when your 2 week old screams nonstop like he is being murdered every time you change his diaper, the last thing you want is to put both of you through that only to discover…oh. Dry diaper.
Enter: that sanity-saving little line. Remember—stripe is yellow, dry little fellow. Stripe is blue, needs a new. We dodged many a false start on diaper changes because we had that clear indication if he was wet or dry.
Circling back to my point, wouldn’t it be nice if walking in the spirit came with a little yellow-or-blue line? Line of yellow, spirit’s mellow. Line of blue, that’s your cue! But it doesn’t, and some Christians spend their whole believing walk wondering if they have or will ever walk in that power. They wonder if every prophetic word was really prophecy (did I do it right? Was that my own opinion? How come it didn’t sound like my pastor/group leader/friend’s prophecy? Did I do it wrong? Did they?), if that was actually speaking in tongues (it sounded like babbling. It felt like babbling. Did I make that interpretation up?), if they’re actually casting out demons or receiving a heads-up from God about matters.
Frankly, it’s exhausting! Wouldn’t we all love to know what walking in the spirit feels like, once and for all?
Well, for better or worse in terms of our sanity, it’s less a question of “what does it feel like?” and more like, “what can it feel like?”…because there’s lots of ways this can go — as many ways as there are unique individuals in the family of God, in fact! It’s like asking what a “Build Your Own Burger” looks like; it could look any number of ways depending on the individual (I know, I know, so far I’ve compared walking by the spirit to wet diapers and cheeseburgers…but hang in with me!).
Walking by the spirit can even vary situation-to-situation with one individual! I’ve had friends who often feel the power of God as a nudge in their spirit—a gut feeling—which they follow through on; yet other times they hear an audible voice! Sometimes they just feel like they should give someone $20 out of the blue; other times God shows them in a dream/vision. Personally, I’ve often known I’m walking by the spirit smack in the middle of the journey—I’ll be ministering to someone and feel this rush of God’s power through me and I realize, “Oh, hey, I thought I was just speaking to this person but I’m actually prophesying over them! I’m speaking to the hidden places of their heart that even I didn’t know needed to be addressed!” Or I’ll feel the need to do something for someone that wouldn’t normally cross my mind, or that feels totally out of the blue, and then I see the impact it has and realize, “Ah, that was spirit power for sure!”
So, how do you know you’re walking by the spirit? First, you pray and practice; if you feel a nudge, if you’re hearing it, if the urge overcomes you, take it to God in prayer. You may not have a whole lot of time to wait for an answer, but it’s still crucial to be in it with God! Even a prayer like, “Okay, God, I have this urge and I think it’s from you. I’m trusting in that and acting on that trust…please bear good fruit in this!”
Second, you watch the fruit. Remember, Jesus said that a good tree can’t bear bad fruit, and vice versa. Walking by the spirit will always reap a godly (not necessarily easy!) result.
Yes, that does mean that sometimes you won’t realize you’re walking by the power of the spirit until after the fact! You may say something to someone, take a course of action, follow the nudge to take a different route home from work, etc.—and find out later you changed the course of a whole life. As you grow your trust and follow those nudges, you’ll begin to recognize earlier and earlier in many cases that this is God’s spirit communicating with you. That’s the Helper helping! But often it takes stepping forward in trust of what we aren’t sure about many times before we become sensitive to the spirit’s leading!
Here’s the wonderful thing, though; the more you walk by the spirit, the more aware of it you become. You learn how God prompts you and figure out your stride in lockstep with Him. To use my son as an analogy one more time, by around 6 months I no longer needed the diaper indicator most days; I’d figured out how to read his cues! Or think of your favorite Build Your Own Burger joint; you don’t have to wonder about every possible combo because you’ve figured out the one that sets your taste buds on fire! In time, you’ll also become sensitive to the spirit’s cues, and you’ll know what works in this teamwork with God!
In conclusion—how do I know I’m walking by the spirit? Sensitivity and fruit. Time and practice. Prayer and walking forward in trust. Don’t let doubt hold you back when you feel that nudge; surrender it in prayer and step forward in action. Mountains have moved, lives have been saved and changed, and the kingdom has advanced as people have trusted God and learned to be sensitive to His voice. You will learn how He speaks to you, and you’ll learn to hear Him both loud and soft. You will come to understand the spirit’s touch in your life. And the more you act in accordance with God’s guidance through that gift of holy spirit in you, the more attuned to Him you’ll become!
