Have you ever been with someone and you knew something was troubling them? They’ve not vocalized their feelings but still, you could sense that something wasn’t right. This is called discernment and it is a major component of effective communication, especially with God. Remember, communication is much more than words. Ideally, what you discern should help lead to more open dialogue with that individual. Working with God, discernment is like a radar that gives us insight into His feelings and desires. It will often be accompanied by a word of knowledge and word of wisdom for us to know what to do with the insight we are receiving.

In the last post (How God Speaks) we explored the idea of how the Spirit speaks to us through internal impressions. This principle has application to the nine gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12. Faith is not blind — to work with God we must know both what He is doing and how we can partner with Him. For each spiritual gift, there are “hints'' communicated by God. To be effective in spiritual ministry, we must first discern these hints so we know what He is desiring to do. All spiritual gifts are activated by the will of God (Hebrews 2:4), but making ourselves available in these moments is our responsibility.

Consider the gift of tongues and interpretation. If you’ve been in a service when this gift has been in operation, you may remember the moments that preceded the message in tongues being given. It’s often called the “holy hush” — this divinely orchestrated moment is marked by a quiet stillness that settles upon the people. The pastor did not take the microphone and ask everyone to be quiet, it is a work of the Spirit. The body is discerning the direction of the Spirit and is being prepared to hear the word of the Lord. At the very same moment that God is preparing the body to hear, He is searching for a willing vessel to speak through. He is looking for an individual who at this moment, will make themselves available and it could be you! You need to know that once you are filled with the Holy Spirit, all of the spiritual gifts are available to you. The apostle Paul said, “For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him” (Philippians 2:13 NLT). Now that you have discerned God’s intention, you can exercise faith and support His will by working together with Him. All gifts of the Spirit have accompanying “hints” to help us know and accomplish the will and work of God.

When I began to hunger for the things of the Spirit and personally seek for greater understanding, I found a lot of inspirational preaching but very little practical teaching. Inspiration gives us the “want to” but practical teaching helps us with “how to” and we need both. At present, I wonder if we might be over-inspired and under-equipped. In my experience, most people generally have a desire to work with God. The issue is often a lack of understanding that keeps people from exercising faith to fulfill their desire and ultimately, to please God.

Only as we commit ourselves to the balance of inspiration and instruction can we discover the measure of the impact God desires us to have. It is not God’s desire that spiritual gifts be restricted to operate in buildings and corporate services. They should be active in the everyday life of every believer — first, in relationship with Jesus and second, in ministry to others.