When we do not know how to sense the movement of God’s Spirit, we end up relying on what is visible, on our own human movements, desires, and senses. If we cannot perceive the invisible, we inevitably create something we can see, a tangible version of what we imagine.
The essential truth about our spiritual reality, which we share with one another and experience in God, of which we may increasingly become aware if we grow, is that the seen is merely a shadow of what is unseen, and is less substantial even though immediately accessible to our senses. If we cannot discern the movement of God’s Spirit, our real existence is hidden to us.
Love, though invisible, is far more important than any physical object. Love is the very essence of God and the source of all. The work of God’s Spirit is typically harder to perceive than virtually any human work, but which is more grounding? Which matters most?
It is as if we begin life drawn to what is most obvious, but to progress, we must become more attuned to the unseen. The subtle and hidden aspects of our existence are the most important for finding meaning in life.
Developing an inner sense for the unseen, one beyond our natural five senses, requires becoming increasingly familiar with our own selves as spiritual beings and the reality within which we exist. The material aspects of our existence are not what is deepest and most meaningful.
The hopeful news is that all physical objects and creation itself can be windows into a more profound reality, helping us perceive the unseen. They can be icons of God and his working, so that we look “through” things rather than “at” them. The same is true of events which occur and our experiences. We may search for the divine source behind and beneath all.
Encountering the hidden reality is more about being encountered by it, rather than our doing anything. The spiritual works on us if we let go of our habit of fixating solely on what our natural senses perceive. Beauty, truth, and goodness are constantly drawing us toward deeper reality through how they speak to us in the physical world.
Inevitably, when pursuing a spiritual walk, we want a formula, a step-by-step guide to this spiritual awareness, or a practical set of actions to take. We long to conform spiritual realities to the plane of the physical simply because we are most familiar with it. But, we are less actors than those acted upon in spiritual matters.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Romans 8:14
To be led is clearly passive, not active, but we resist the call to surrender. To be led by the unseen, often imperceptible, and mysterious divine Spirit, is contrary to our preferred modus operandi: the flesh.
We can think of the flesh as our self-made and self-making drive, the “ego” if you will. What resists the Spirit is our desire to “take charge” and be in control. We prefer a tangible world we can master, even if it is the shadow realm, rather than being led spiritually in what is truly real. This is the struggle to lose our life to gain true life.
Though not formulaic and procedural, and certainly not where we are in control, there are ways for us to open ourselves to being led by the Spirit. We want to consider how to orient ourselves toward the development of a sensitivity which discerns the movement of the Spirit.