Dr. Randy Carlson
God reveals things to each of us in different ways. For me, it could be in a passage of scripture that I’m reading, in an incident I’ve witnessed or an experience I had. We can be humble and say, “God, what are you revealing to me? What is it that you want me to learn through this?” Or, we can be stubborn and say, “I already know.”
When the Apostle Paul was taken into prison in Caesarea, and held in captivity by the governor, Felix, for several years, he shared the message of what it means to be a follower of Christ. Felix, a cruel, godless person, was married to a Jewish woman. Felix and his wife Drusilla sent for Paul and listened to him as he shared about his faith in Christ. Now as he reasoned about righteousness, self-control and judgment to come, Felix was afraid (Acts 24:24).
Sometimes an ah-ha moment comes during an emotional reaction. Emotions should be a fuel to reveal something or cause us to respond in a healthy way. Felix had an ah-ha moment and his response to Paul, “Go away from me now and when it is convenient, I will call (Acts 24:25). And he never did.
So here are three helpful and practical things we can do to cultivate more of our ah-ha moments:
- Listen to the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is our comforter and our guide. Jesus told his disciples as they prepared to go into the world, “Now when they bring you into the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, don’t worry about how you should answer or what you should say” (Luke 12:11). He’s saying, “Your life is going to be tough. You are going to be challenged. People are going to drag you into court and into the synagogues. You are going to be challenged on what you believe. Then he says, “For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say” (Luke 12:12).
When you have that wrestling in your spirit that something isn’t right, or there is something that needs to change in your life, that’s the moment to get very serious about prayer and ask the Lord to reveal through the Holy Spirit what to do and say.
- Ask better questions.
If you want the truth, you’ve got to ask the right questions. The Bible is really a question book. It’s filled with questions.
- How can a young person stay on the path of purity? Psalm 119:9
- Pilot asked, “What shall I do with Jesus?” That’s a great question that we should be asking.
- What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul? Mark 8:36 You could spend a couple of days or you can spend the rest of your life thinking about that.
- If God is for us who can be against us? Romans 8.
You hear me ask the question: What one thing can I do in the next 30 days that would most significantly impact my marriage or my family or my finances? Keep questions in front of you and just wrestle with them for a while.
- Seek godly counsel.
Proverbs 11:14 says, “Where there is no counsel, the people fall, but in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.” If you want to have better ah-ha moments in life, be around people who are godly, smart, care about you, have no agenda and who love you. You can just say I’m wrestling with this in my life and they can start asking you those kinds of questions that make you think and pray with you through the process.
If we are doing these three things on a regular basis, we’re going to likely have less oh-no moments. I’m not looking for the next oh-no moment. I’d rather say, “Lord, what ah-ha moment is out there for me today?”
