Do you believe that your Higher Power communicates to you at times through other people? If so, how do you actually know when that happens?
I ask these specific questions because of my recent experiences with an extremely devout Christian who felt quite strongly they were doing God’s work when speaking to me, which at one point even included speaking in tongues during a prayer with me. Yet I really never felt the presence of God coming through any of it.
In light of this and given the fact that I felt so spiritually drained and was left doubting myself each time I connected with this individual, it got me wondering how others truly know when God is providing them guidance through another. So, I began to ask other faith-based people this question and ironically, there was a common answer amongst all of them.
They usually felt loved, embraced, and better about themselves around the person providing spiritual guidance both during their time with them and after.
With that being said, I can safely say without any hesitation, I didn’t feel that way during most of my time with this person. Rather, I felt judged, like I wasn’t good enough, that I needed to do more to gain God’s favor and that maybe I was resisting spiritual transformation. Thus, if God was really talking to me through this person, I can honestly say I don’t think I should have felt this way. But more importantly, I’ve also had a number of spiritual experiences throughout my own life with others where I truly did feel like God has communicated to me through them.
Take my best friend from Massachusetts for example. He’s been in my life now for 19 years and is one of the most devout Christians I know, yet never have I ever felt less than, beneath him, judged, or unloved whenever he has talked to me about God. In fact, it’s usually been just the opposite. Rather, I tend to feel far better and more energetic in life whenever we speak about our Christian faith and that feeling frequently lasts even several hours beyond our time together. The same principle has held true with my current therapist, with a spiritual teacher I followed diligently for five straight years now, and with several holistic practitioners I’ve utilized along the way as well.
That’s why I’ve decided that in the future whenever I have someone talking to me about God and offering guidance, that I’m going to ask myself if I’m feeling loved, embraced, and better about myself during it. If I’m not, then I’m going to make the assumption that it’s probably not God speaking through them. And if it’s not God speaking through them, then the only thing that’s most likely doing the speaking, is the one thing that tends to cause so many people in this world to avoid seeking a closer relationship to God in the first place and that’s the ego. And speaking from the ego about God will generally just create more doubt in others, which is precisely what I felt during my conversations with this devout Christian recently.
So, the next time you find yourself preaching about God to someone else, ask them how they’re really feeling inside when you’re doing it. If they say they’re feeling uncomfortable, judged on any level, or having doubt, there’s there a strong likelihood you’re not being a conduit for God’s guidance and instead you’re probably just allowing your ego to run the show…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
