Momentum (Christ – centred, Spirit – empowered, Mission – focused)
Over the past few weeks, I have been reading a book by Rob Reimer entitled, River Dwellers. One of the ideas that caught my attention was the thought of monitoring the “dashboard of the soul.”
Rob writes, “Think of the dashboard of your car. There are indicator lights on your dashboard that are warning signs. If your oil light comes on, it would be very unwise to ignore it…we all have a dashboard of the soul, and there are indicator lights that blink at us and warn us that we are drifting from the manifest presence of God.”
I love this picture! The question I started to ask myself was, “What are the warning lights on the dashboard of my soul that are vital to my spiritual health?”
Two internal gauges that are critical to the wellbeing of the soul can be summarized in two words: grieving and quenching.
In his book God on Fire, Fred Hartley writes, “Do not quench the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) and do not grieve the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 4:30) represent two sides of the same coin. To quench is to not do what the Holy Spirit is seeking to motivate you to do. To grieve is to do what the Holy Spirit is seeking to restrain….”
In other words, God sets off the warning lights on the dashboard of our soul when we are moving out of bounds from God’s desires for us.
Another way of looking at this is what I call the “holy poke” or the “divine nudge.” It is the work of the Holy Spirit to keep our soul vibrant and tuned in to the will of God for our lives.
How does this work out practically? In my own personal journey, I have asked God to make my soul hypersensitive to grieving or quenching the Holy Spirit. I want to declare war my selfish orientation to ignore the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit.
One area of needed growth in my life is around anger. It is far too easy for me to allow inner frustration to erupt into a burst of anger towards those who are closest to me. For example, I was driving too close to the car in front of me, and when Agnes brought it to my attention, I reacted with anger in a way that made her feel hurt.
Immediately, the warning light of “grieving” began to flash on the dashboard of my soul; however, my first reaction was defensiveness, the feeble attempt to justify my response. The “grieving” light just got brighter.
Finally, I acknowledged my sin and apologized. The light flickered and went out.
A few days ago, I was speaking with my neighbor who is working through the beginning stages of a relationship with God. He shared with me how one of his clients ripped him off and the lawsuit he mounted was not going well.
He was being eaten up by bitterness and asked God for wisdom. God gave him a clear plan of what he needed to do to solve the conflict. He did it, and the situation was fixed.
Tears were in his eyes as he shared this experience. Immediately, I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit to affirm his actions and encourage him to keep listening to God. I hesitated, not wanting to come across too preachy.
Instantaneously, I noticed the “quenching” light flashing on the dashboard of my soul. Under my breath, I asked God for boldness and I found my mouth moving with words of affirmation and a challenge to keep listening to God. The “quench” light flickered and went out.
In this New Year, let’s focus on soul renovation rather than life resolutions.
Renovation requires a deep sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. It is about “dashboard” living on a continual basis. How is the dashboard of your soul?
Please find the original version in C&MA website