From Chapter Two, Why You Don't Have to Believe Your Intuitions Are the Holy Spirit: Or, How the Spirit Shapes Our Hearts.
Explaining things is its own kind of skill -- mainly a skill of putting things into words. [...] That's why the feeling that "I can't explain it" is not a sign that it's God working in our hearts. Most of the time what that feeling really means is: "I don't have the vocabulary I need to say this right" or "I'm not good at talking about this kind of thing." It's not mysterious. It's just the situation of someone who hasn't learned how to be very articulate about his perceptions. That's how it often goes with the habits of the heart. We learn the skills first, then we learn how to talk about them. And even when we do know how to explain them, having the intuition is very different from explaining it. The explanation comes second, if it's needed at all.
Explaining things is its own kind of skill -- mainly a skill of putting things into words. [...] That's why the feeling that "I can't explain it" is not a sign that it's God working in our hearts. Most of the time what that feeling really means is: "I don't have the vocabulary I need to say this right" or "I'm not good at talking about this kind of thing." It's not mysterious. It's just the situation of someone who hasn't learned how to be very articulate about his perceptions. That's how it often goes with the habits of the heart. We learn the skills first, then we learn how to talk about them. And even when we do know how to explain them, having the intuition is very different from explaining it. The explanation comes second, if it's needed at all.
So basically whether or not you can explain an intuition doesn't indicate whether it's from the Holy Spirit or if it's from ourselves? Is there even a point in wanting to explain things in the first place?
ReplyDeleteI'm planning to read the book during the retreat, so if the answer's in there, dont' worry about replying.
Being able to explain an intuition is generally better than not being able to explain it, because you can understand where the intuition came from and better ascertain if it's true or not. Say you have an intuition that someone dislikes you. If you can explain it as coming from the fact that they don't talk you, you could see the alternative that they're just shy. Or if you're correct, you can know to pay more attention to how people behave around you.
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