Grace Church

“I went in response to a revelation,” Paul formerly Saul writes in this devotional focus, an ongoing directional tool from the early days of his new life in Christ. The story told in Acts 9 about Saul’s vision of a man named Ananias laying hands on him and the Lord’s words to Ananias to be that man marked a beginning of Paul’s dependency on the Spirit. In my own life, my early responses to God’s direction were more like Ananias’s initial hesitation out of fear than the blinded Saul’s receptivity. When God said to me in the mid-eighties, “I want you to tell your husband you speak in tongues,” I was appalled.

This lesson in submission occurred over 20 years ago. My husband Tom was not yet a believer. Although we regularly attended the church in California where he grew up, the gospel of Jesus Christ was not preached. I was born of the Spirit through the intercession of my brother and a neighbor’s prayer group.

When I told Tom I was born again, his response was kind but firm: “That’s all right for you. Just don’t try to convert me!”

All right, honey. The promise in Scripture for my husband to “be won without a word” suited my introvert personality. When the Lord said to open my mouth about the controversial gift of tongues, I thought following this direction would freak Tom out and put him off Christianity for good.

Adam Dawson’s guided prayer about this passage certainly characterized my need during these days: “Instill in us (in me!) boldness and courage to live in the Spirit no matter what the cost.”

“No matter what the cost.” Part of my resistance to the Holy Spirit’s leading was an irrational fear of my husband’s rejection. Lies from the enemy assaulted my thought life, and I was in anguish. Not because Tom had behaved towards me with rejection and anger previously in our marriage, but because of a mindset of anxiety and grief associated with childhood trauma. What attracted me to Tom in the early months of our friendship in 1971 was his gentleness and loyalty.

The Father’s preparation for me to confide in my husband was “all about grace.” He is The Expert on Grace: “the divine influence on the heart, and its reflection in the life.” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance)

His preparation, clear and delightful, is another story.

Tom’s reaction, unique and loving, is another story.

Tom’s memory of this conversation years after becoming a Christian is, again, another
story.

The effects of the Lord’s grace-full direction at that time? He was dislodging my fears of rejection and abandonment. He wanted me to enjoy being conformed to the image of His Son in the inward parts: “the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.” (1 Peter 3:4)