Hearing The Holy Spirit Affirms Your Faith

The night it happened

I remember a direct encounter with the Holy Spirit that I can prove was not my imagination. I just don’t know what to think about it.

Also, I made several hundred dollars in this experience.

I remember distinctly what night it was, because I was watching what went down as the longest baseball game in World Series history. That puts it at October 26, 2018. I was watching because I live in the LA area, and the Dodgers had made it to the Series. I was lounging in an armchair in front of the TV.

The game started in the early evening. It went on as usual. To be clear, I’m not a huge sports fan, so I was only watching with half an eye. Otherwise, I was just relaxing.

The game started to go long.

I had a strange thought float through my mind. I’ve tried to define a phenomenology of the voice of the Holy Spirit, but I’m still struggling for a good description.

It was no different than a daydream. It’s like any other thought that might float through your mind during the day. However, it often feels like a strange idea, something you wouldn’t think of yourself. This has happened to me a number of times throughout my life, but I’m still processing them.

The thought was: cancel all your appointments for tomorrow morning.

I looked at my calendar. I had two meetings planned, just meetings over coffee with two different individuals. One was around 9am and the other was around 11.

Of course, at first, I did nothing.

The game trolled on.

But then the — do I call it a voice? The thought recurred. It was strong enough to give you the feeling you would get when your mom would nag you to pick up your dirty clothes off the floor and put them in the hamper. You know, it came with a sense of clarity and duty, like someone was reminding you of something they had already told you about.

So, on a whim, I decided to do it to see what would happen. I sent texts to the two different people to ask if I could reschedule. With that done, my morning was now free. If nothing happened, if this was just my imagination, I had now wasted a morning.

The game went on. 8pm. 9pm. 10pm.

At this point, I just assumed that I was wrong. I figured I just watched what was now turning out to be a surprisingly long game.

Then it happened.

The assignment

I got a text. It came from a student at the school where I teach.

“Can you drive downtown tomorrow morning and help a friend of mine? There is a group of Chinese tourists who are visiting a site. The translator’s English is not very good. They need you to read some documents in English to answer questions, and he will translate them into Chinese.”

She knew that I spoke a little Chinese. This group, it would turn out, was looking at real estate and would have lots of questions about a new building that was being built. Because the documents describing it were lengthy and used technical language, they needed someone who could quickly skim through them to find the answers to the visitors’ questions about it. Strange request, but something I could easily do.

I knew that for some reason, this is why I had cleared my calendar.

“Absolutely I’ll do it.” I think God already told me to, I thought.

“Also,” she added, “You will be paid $400.”

“Wait,” I said. “Are you serious? How long will this take?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

And it went down exactly like that. I drove to downtown LA, skimmed through some documents and reported answers to a translator who spoke to the crowd of visitors. And I made $400 in 15 minutes.

A theology of weirdness

I don’t know exactly what to say about that. It wasn’t some great kingdom work done in Jesus’ name. I didn’t preach the gospel. No one was healed. I didn’t have anything to do with real estate, and I never saw any of those people again.

But obviously, the event had one lasting impact. It was a startling wake-up call to me that when I have even the most vague sense that the Holy Spirit might be speaking, I should act obediently. I wonder now, retrospectively, if that wasn’t the point. The night was already memorable. The reward was staggeringly high for how little work it took. That combination made for a retellable story, which I think is what planted it so firmly in my memory.

So I continue to stay tuned and to listen. I have a stronger faith because of events like this. I know God speaks, and I know that when I obey, he will take care of me.