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This story by Patricia Joseph-Lyle of Detroit, Michigan, from the August 2014 issue of Guideposts called to mind this earlier Guideposts story about the urgent need to listen to your inner voice at all costs. That’s not an exaggeration. Fail to heed that voice and it could cost you everything you hold dear.
A VOICE IN THE NIGHT
Something was telling her to call her younger sister at 3 a.m., but she had no idea why. What would she tell her sibling?
Call Karyn. Those words startled me from a sound sleep. I sat straight up, rubbed my eyes and looked at the clock: just after three in the morning.
My younger sister Karyn was a senior at Eastern Michigan University and was used to pulling long hours studying in her tiny on-campus apartment… but she had to be asleep by now.
My alarm wasn’t set to go off for another two and a half hours. There was so much to do tomorrow.
Get my two little girls to school, work a 10-hour day at the office, take the girls to violin and piano practice, cook dinner, check homework and iron school uniforms.
I needed every hour of rest I could get.
I’ll call her in the morning, I thought. I lay back down and closed my eyes.
Call her, Pattie. A voice (more…)
I can relate to stories like this. So many times I’ve felt guided to do some minor thing I ordinarily wouldn’t have done. I’ve learned to follow my intuition without questioning it because trying to make sense of it at the time is impossible. You just have to trust that everything will unfold (or, in this case, uncoil) in its own way in its own time.
This story was written by Sandi Sebak Bean of Bottineau, North Dakota, and featured in a Guideposts e-letter. Click here to sign up for Guideposts‘ free Mysterious Ways newsletter. You’ll also be able to download a free e-book, Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories That Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace.
A ROPE OF HOPE
There was something in our church craft cabinet . . . something I’d never seen in there before
I walked over to our church’s craft cabinet, hoping to find some project ideas for kids. In just a few days my husband, Daniel, and I would be taking a mission trip to help the Crow Creek Reservation in South Dakota build a new church and we’d need some fun things to do with the families.
I’d barely opened the door when a long piece of thick rope (more…)
My friend Mark was coming to pick me up at 5:30 tonight to drive me to the airport for a two-month trip back home to Minnesota. I had been trying in vain for two months to find someone to rent my room in Encinitas, California while I was away to help defray the rent cost.
At 11:10 this morning, three hours and twenty minutes before I’d be heading to the airport, I had no renter and zero prospects. By the time Mark picked me up at 2:30, I had not only found a renter, she had already moved in and had even taken me grocery shopping!
Out of the blue, Taylore, a friend whom fate had guided me to meet a mere three months earlier, Facebooked me and asked if my room was still available because she needed a space for September until she found a place of her own. I said yes, and, thinking she was still in Europe on a six-week trip, asked what date she’d be arriving. She (more…)
This story by my friend, Judy, illustrates the practical use of devotion and intuition. Prayer is not reserved for only the grandest or most urgent desires in life. We can trust our intuition, which flows from and is an expression of Divine Consciousness, to guide us in even the most mundane of moments.
THE (ELECTRIC) POWER OF PRAYER
With my heavy laundry basket nestled on my hip, I walked out of my small rented cottage and headed for the laundry room fifty yards away. Right before I walked in, my landlord approached me and informed me that the washing machine wasn’t working. Apparently, the electricity had gone out and she and her staff had not yet found the breaker switch to get the washing machine going again. Although she had owned the property for four years, she had never needed to know where the breaker switch was hidden. It was hidden so well, in fact, that they had been searching for it for three days.
Upon hearing the news, the thought came to me, “Lord, you know where the breaker switch is. Show me where to find it!” I placed my laundry on (more…)
On my way to Whole Foods tonight, I passed a woman on the sidewalk, startling her as I walked briskly by. She smiled and joked about it as I passed her. Once in the store, I saw her in the produce section and thought, “I’m supposed to talk to her.” That happens often; I can walk into a crowd of people and my attention is drawn to one or two people whom I’m supposed to meet. I’ve learned to pay attention to those intuitive commands and have grown fearless in following through with them. After all, what’s the worst that can happen when you cheerfully introduce yourself to someone?
That nudge-nudge feeling was confirmed when I ran into her two more times throughout the store. Finally, when we both were standing in front of the deli counter, the time was right. I said to her, “We keep on running into each other, so I figure that means I’m supposed to meet you.” She was delighted that I had struck up a conversation. She told me she had lived in Encinitas for many years. When I asked her what kind of work she did, she said she ran a guest house. Bingo! I immediately knew who she was before she told mer her name. It was (more…)
I have heard so many stories from so many people who heard a voice or felt a sense of urgency to do something right now that appeared to make no sense. Yet obeying that inner command turned out to be life-saving. This story by A.C. Brackett, Attalla, Alabama, appeared in Guideposts. Click here for another such Guideposts story.
THE VOICE
What would ever compel this US Army sergeant to leave his warm bed when he wasn’t needed?
It was August 1969, a hot, humid night in Ban Me Thuot, Vietnam. I was stationed with the US Army as Communications Chief in charge of all radio communications, located inside the Command Post, a four-room reinforced concrete bunker, surrounded by sandbags.
I got undressed and into my bunk, hoping to get a few hours of sleep before I was on duty again. I rolled over and looked at the clock: 11:30 p.m. Seconds later I heard a voice say, “Get (more…)
Kathryn Harwig
I know that a lot of people struggle with the question, How can I distinguish the voice of my intuition from the voice of my ego? I like the way that Kathryn Harwig, a friend of mine who’s an author and psychic, provides an excellent analysis of that issue in this essay from her website. With Kathryn’s permission, I’m sharing it here.
INTUITION VERSUS SELF TALK
Recently someone asked me, “How do I know if the information I am getting is coming from my intuition or from my own self talk?” This is a very good question, and one that everyone who is serious about being intuitive needs to ask on occasion. It is a challenge to be intuitive about yourself and most of us find that it is far easier to give someone else a psychic reading than to give ourselves good intuitive advice.
Why? Because our own hopes, dreams, worries and fears tend to get in the way of our hearing our inner psychic, at least when we are asking for information for ourselves. Many people solve this dilemma, at least in part, by consulting with other psychics. But, we also want and need to use our intuition to make our own lives better. So, it is necessary, I think, to be able to distinguish the voice of our inner self talk and the quiet voice of our intuitive wisdom.
I attended a talk once where the speaker said that our unconscious mind was unable to hear the word (more…)
John, Nicole and Jonah Manley (photo by Mindy Gough)
My friend, John Manley, a fellow member of Self-Realization Fellowship, told me a powerful story about the importance of listening to your intuition. It gave me chills as he was telling it to me.
But first, a little background on John, who is an author of metaphysical speculative fiction. About a decade ago, he had been living in an SRF ashram in California for a couple of years. Determining that the monastic life was not his path, he moved back to his hometown of Toronto. He stayed there for two months before heading off to Italy for two years to study art. Every week, he attended an SRF meditation group in Toronto. On the day of a special commemoration service for Babaji, the first in the SRF line of gurus, he got off the subway and headed toward the center. Here’s what happened next, in his own words:
I saw a woman ahead of me and thought, Oh, I know her. I’ve seen her at the meditation group. So I came up to her and said, “Are you going to the Babaji ceremony?” She said, “The what?” She had never heard of Babaji. I said, “Oh, sorry, I thought you belonged to the meditation group I go to.” She said, “What meditation group is this?” I said, “Oh, it’s nothing.” She said, “No, I want to know about it.” So I told her about it as we were walking. As we neared the center, I pointed it out and said, “This is where it is. Sunday mornings they have a service if you ever want to come by.” I said goodbye and went in for the Babaji ceremony. She continued on her way to work.
Two years later, when I got back from Italy, I came to the center and there she was. Her name was Nicole. She had taken initiation and was a full-fledged member. She told me that after she had met me, she was very interested in what SRF was all about. Soon after, at a doctor’s appointment, her doctor said, “I have this book I think you’d like to read.” It was Autobiography of a Yogi. She thought, Something’s going on here. A few weeks later she (more…)
We all hear the voice of intuition, yet it’s often so subtle that we can rationalize ignoring it. But what if that inner voice is clear, specific and strong? What then? In this story from Guideposts, Marty Via heard that voice and knew he had no choice but to follow it. May you find the courage like Marty and his family did to follow your inner guidance wherever it may lead. Turn away from the path you know is yours to trod, and you will forevermore drift off to sleep with these two words on your mind: What if?
ONE FAMILY’S UNEXPECTED MISSION
I have discovered my own personal key to faith. It’s what people once said I couldn’t do.
Marty Via and his family
Plans have never been my specialty. I’ve basically spent most of my life going from one thing to the next, playing whatever hand I’m dealt. For a long time I felt like that hand was a pretty bad one.
Growing up on a farm, I went to church occasionally, though I can’t say the pastor’s words really got through to me. We were poor, and I was a little guy, but I made up for it in spunk. By the time I could walk, I was up to no good. My teachers said I just never listened.
At age 18 I joined the Army. More discipline problems. I couldn’t stand having people tell me what to do—not exactly a useful attitude in the military.
I got married while in the Army and we had a child. After discharge, I started working construction. But by that point drugs and alcohol were more important to me than family. My marriage fell apart. One day I found myself alone in an empty apartment. I was burned out, miserable. I longed for someone to give me advice, to tell me what to do. I thought about my parents, about the pastor at church when I was a boy, about my teachers, my drill sergeant, my boss. They had all said the same thing: You don’t listen. “Lord,” I said out loud, “I realize I haven’t done a good job leading my own life so far. I (more…)
Your capacity to be fully present expands dramatically when you stop identifying yourself as a time-bound human being separate from others, and start experiencing life as a timeless spiritual being at one with all creation.
There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One With Life. Being one with life is being one with Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.
Eckhart Tolle
It is your intuition that is your lifeline to Spirit, to the ever-alert, ever-present observer within you. Deepak Chopra describes this “observer in the (more…)
This powerful, suspenseful story by Dick Sullivan of Stoneham, Massachusetts, moved me to tears. I have heard many such stories that all convey the same life-altering message: Listen to your intuition and follow it at all costs; there is a power guiding us with infinite wisdom and deep love and all we need to do is trust it. This story was originally published in Guideposts in November 1955.
GOD, SEND SOMEONE!
Was it a coincidence or a true miracle that led to my brother’s rescue?
At 4 p.m. last June 14, my brother Jack Sullivan was just crawling down into a ten-foot-deep trench, which ran down the center of Washington Street, a main thoroughfare in West Roxbury, Massachusetts.
It was near quitting time. Jack is a welder, and he wanted to finish one particular part of his job before he left. Jack said goodbye to the other men as they quit, took his welding lead in his right hand, lowered himself and his electric power cable into the trench. His head was well below the street surface.
Traffic up above was heavy. Jack could not see the cars and trucks, but he could feel their vibration as the earth shook slightly. Occasionally a pebble would break loose from the side of the trench and fall. Jack paid no attention to it.
It was Jack’s job to weld the joints of a new water main both inside and out. First Jack crawled into the 36-inch diameter pipe, lowered his mask to protect his eyes against the bright welding arc, then went to work. After completing the inside of the joint he crawled out of the pipe. It was 4:30 P.M. He began to weld the outside. Halfway through he stood up to get the kinks out of his legs. Jack stretched, turned toward the pipe, pulled down the shield again. And then it happened.
The bank caved in. Tons of dirt came (more…)
From the moment it first pierces your awareness, your calling is as much a part of you as your heartbeat. As you come into alignment with your life’s work, you will be given glimpses of what heaven expects from you.
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Viktor Frankl
If your intent is pure and your trust in the universe complete, you will be intuitively guided to take the steps necessary to bring your vision to fruition.
Vision is not enough, it must be combined with (more…)
This story on Guideposts.org by Jan Holte of St. Peter, Minnesota, is the perfect reminder to always listen to your inner voice. Don’t argue with it. Don’t rationalize it away. Follow it or pay the consequences.
“GET THE BABY!”
I heard a voice, strong and clear. Was it evidence of God’s love?
I settled down on the living room couch, cradling my three-week-old daughter, Debbie, in my arms. One look at her sweet, innocent face and my heart swelled with thankfulness. I thought back to the doctor’s words to my husband, John, and me just 14 months before she was born: “I’m sorry to tell you, but you have about a one-in-a-million chance of conceiving a child,” he’d said. Debbie was truly our miracle baby.
I strapped Debbie in her infant seat and placed her next to John on the couch. She smiled as her bright eyes followed the patterns of dappled sunlight that filtered through the window. “You stay here and keep Daddy company,” I said. “I’m going to make us all some lunch.”
As soon as I reached the kitchen, just a few steps away, I heard a (more…)
Truth is a multi-sided gem that reflects the light of perception differently depending on how it is held and turned in your hand.
The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.
Vaclav Havel
How do you know what is true? Divine intelligence speaks to (more…)
If God is guiding each of us with infinite wisdom and inexhaustible love, it follows that God is an organizing force bringing divine order to the universe, and that you are loved and supported no matter how you choose to exercise your free will.
There is a force of love present everywhere, and it can be trusted to bring your own life into order and peace.
Deepak Chopra
The universe, as self-empowerment author Wayne Dyer so poetically noted, is (more…)
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Triumph of the Spirit 