In my quest to learn how to make disciples who multiply, the second thing I noticed about fruitful disciple-makers is that God talks to them. They have these incredible “coincidences” in the midst of seemingly normal situations. How does that happen? They’re listening to the Holy Spirit. Again, this looks different in various traditions:

• Still small voice, audible voice
• Hunch, impression, feeling, nudge, prompting
• Dreams, visions, angelic visitations
• Scripture jumped out at me, songs
• Inner conviction, felt a peace about it, just know

Last week Heather and I prayed for a young woman who was overcome with tears, sobbing over her situation: “Close your eyes. Imagine Jesus is coming toward you. What’s he doing? Can you see his face? What’s he saying?” She smiled and said, “he’s smiling”. I don’t know what he said to her, but a peace came upon her that was supernatural.

Why did I lead her in that exercise? She was the 4th person we prayed for and we hadn’t done that with the other three. Hard to describe. Somewhere between “I had a hunch”, “it came to mind” and “I felt like it”. I believed the Holy Spirit was present and leading us, so I just went with it. Could it have gone badly? Oh, yeah. We don’t know each other and she could have thought it was weird. But we’re not alone trying to figure out how to pray for people. God is with us.

My friend Neil has convinced me that discipleship primarily consists of teaching people how to hear and obey the Holy Spirit. I mourn all the opportunities I had in the corporate world in my 20’s and 30’s, where I led unbelievers to attend church, attend small groups and even become church leaders, but I didn’t teach them to hear and obey. What fuels their lives? I’m embarrassed.