Learning to be led

In my daughter's high school, they do birthdays up big. It's more or less a tradition for one of the kids to bring in a box of doughnuts that morning for the milestone-marking person. But there is a guy in Aimee's class that she suspected no one would go to Dunkin' Donuts for. I remember her asking me to drive her to school that day (she's usually a busser) and us making a stop for the white and orange box.

That was last year. I learned a little more about it this week, when Aimee was sharing with me some of the things she had done in her life that she was most glad she had done. I learned that the whole thing had almost never happened. When the idea had come to her to bring in doughnuts for Ben, she almost blew it off at the last minute out of laziness. But she did bring them, and Ben was so happy that he went around smiling all day and showing everyone his doughy offerings. Aimee and I mused about what a close call that was---that if she had given in to her baser impulses she would have missed a special moment, a moment that Ben may remember forever. What a small action pays off such big dividends.

These days I am desirous of being "led by the Spirit" (Romans 8:14). I think it is something we can learn. I believe Isaiah's words: "And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left" (Isaiah 30:21). I want to tune in to that voice, and to be able to pick it out from the cacophony of impersonators and from the voice of sinful self-interest.

I attended the first meeting of a ladies' support group at church last week and observed something in the proceedings that alarmed me and that I fleetingly thought should be brought to the leader's attention. Normally when I feel like that I lie down till the feeling passes, know what I mean? But today I am remembering Aimee and Ben and the doughnuts, and the possibilities born of small acts of faithfulness and concern. I just now left Rita a message asking if we could talk about the meeting.

A friend of mine once told me that as a Christian, when an idea comes to me, and when it is an idea that seems like it would be beneficial, its origin is the Holy Spirit; the devil doesn't talk like that. My friend said that persistence in obedience to that kind of inclination is how we learn to be "led by the Spirit." Let me be slow to judge a person who says, "The Spirit told me to do such and such." She is work in progress.

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