How Do I Know?

A young man sits talking with his pastor before his marriage.  "How do you know?" he inquires. Like many people about to marry, they want to make sure this is the right one because the decision will inevitably change their lives in some, probably many, ways.  The pastor gives him some signs, but mostly says, "You just know."

Not unlike the young man about to marry, over the years many of my friends and clients have asked me about the guidance I receive.  "How do you know?" some ask.  "How do you get it?" others want to know.

Yesterday in a meandering conversation with a former Intentional Living Intensive client, now friend, we wandered into the topic.  This time it was me attempting to establish parameters for myself.  My most important guidance, or what I assume to be my most important, has usually been boldly clear to me, and many times it has been the response to a simple question. Often a booming voice spoke to me in a bold but loving way.

When I knew that it was time for me to leave Eugene, Oregon, 22 years ago, I stated simply, "I want a more friendly environment in which to live.  I asked, "Where would you have me go?" Instantly, I received the names of three cities "you should explore." Over the next 18 hours, I received six "signs" about the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina.  The last was a banner headline of my Oregon newspaper, which read: "Raleigh/Durham named best place to live."

Almost a decade after settling into my home in Durham, N.C., I found myself writing the words, "You are to move to Washington, D.C." while I was journaling.  I tried to ignore them. I liked living in N.C.  I had never considered living in Washington, what to me seemed like a "big city."  I had usually lived in smaller cities and just didn't have a clue how to move into a city that I didn't know, without a job, and knowing almost no one. The prospect was overwhelming.

Other times I've gotten repeated guidance that I wasn't excited about receiving, and it has persisted. Over a couple of years, I had frequently gotten guidance to take a month-long pilgrimage to a place where English wasn't the dominant language, make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards. I would be guided I was told. I wasn't ready. Finally, on a flight between two islands in Greece at the end of a physically exhausting conference, the bold voice was there again, this time tinged with more than a little impatience.

The message was the same except for a couple details to take the wiggle room out for me.  "You are to return to Greece within three months for a pilgrimage.  You are to make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards." The open-endedness of previous guidance was erased by very specific place and time frames.  I did receive two very small details over the intervening three months, but mostly I went with little more than initially directed.  It was a wonderful, growthful, and insightful exploration.  I will never be the same.

Insights haven't always been of the life-changing kinds, like moving across the country or going to an expensive tourist country with no credit cards and very little cash. On one of my open-ended vacations a few years later, as the day was growing toward an end, I said to my travel partner, "I wonder where we should stop." Within 1/4 of a mile, a large billboard stated simply in foot-high letters, "This is your place."  It was.

Although it has been a long time since I had one, I used to occasionally, I have what I call a "cosmic marquee."  Like a theatre marquee, a message for me is highlighted by flashing lights around it.  The "cosmic marquee" seems to be reserved for really big messages.

Whether big or small, much of my guidance has been very specific.  However, other times, it has been subtler.  When I find myself  having the same conversation with several clients in the same day or two, I believe that to probably be a sign that I should give the topic some inner reflection.  When I have done so, it has usually ended up being dead-on for me.

Other times, words just come out of my mouth as if I didn't know the source but was keenly aware it was my mouth that was moving.  In the years just after my first two books came out, I did a lot of keynoting, and because I was being paid very well, I always dutifully wrote my speeches in advance. But once I started speaking, other words came out.  At some point, I started a file called, "Speeches I never gave."  I've also found myself asking coaching clients questions that meant nothing to me, but were spot-on for the recipient.

Yesterday's conversation went in a different way, though.  We talked about the even subtler forms of guidance.  A hunch.  An explained desire to do something I've never done. My intuition? Maybe my insatiable quest for adventure?

Recently, I've had the urge to get on a Greyhound bus and travel across the northern part of the US...in January.  Really?!  Our wind-chill factor in Washington today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and I don't even want to go near a window much less travel across the breadth of the country in places that often get much colder than this. This isn't a lingering desire I've suppressed that is emerging from the depths of my psyche. Although I've often jumped on a bus for travel in Europe, I've never even considered going anywhere on a bus in this country.

Is that guidance, I wondered to my client/friend?  I do know that timing is critically important when following guidance.  Not unlike the Butterfly Effect, which describes the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in New Mexico causing a hurricane in China, there are a lot of moving parts in God's world. God knows the plan, but the rest of us don't get the site map.

Let's say I am supposed to bump into someone at a truck stop near Fargo, North Dakota, on January 25. I have to take the bus because if I was driving, it is a place I wouldn't stop. The encounter may be brief, maybe totally unmemorable. In the course of a casual conversation, say with a waitress while ordering lunch, I say something that makes her understand an aspect of her life differently.  We don't talk about going back to college or moving to Arizona, but there is something that is said that makes her connect to doing those things. As a result of those bold moves, she makes a discovery in her research that alters the course of humankind.

If I didn't leave until weather is more pleasant in spring, I don't make that connection, which means that a conversation we may have had never happens.  Following guidance isn't like using God as your personal travel agent.  It is very precisely about allowing God to change the world through you.

Think about Moses saying to God that he doesn't want to go that way because there's no way to get around the sea.  How could he have known?  He just followed his guidance.

So, back to the question, "How do you know?"  As I sit in my apartment contemplating whether I want to walk half a block in this weather to get to a car to go to a dance tonight, I ponder, "Do I really want to get on a bus and travel across the northern US?"  It is a question heavy on my heart.  My intention is to make the world a better place, and if this is guidance, I would do almost anything to do my part.  Yet, what if this isn't guidance, and traveling on a bus in January is really a fool's errand I'd rather avoid?  How do I know?

I will meditate on this more...and ask simple questions.  In the end, I will trust that with my intentions clear, I will know in my heart what I am to do.