Check In My Spirit

I had a check in my spirit today.

Do you know what I mean by that?  It’s when you get that feeling in the pit of your stomach that tells you what’s going on… isn’t right.  Or maybe it’s that feeling you get telling you that you should be doing something different.

I’m sure you’ve felt it before.

• Remember the time you saw that 80/20 ground beef on sale with a coupon attached to it and you were tempted to move the coupon over to the leaner ground beef so the price would be less?
• Or what about the time you were tempted to lie about returning a library book when you knew you’d left it on the plane, and you didn’t want to fork over the cash to pay the fine?
• What about the time you got that questionable email in your in-box suggesting you visit a website that went against every moral you have, and for some reason looked interesting at that moment?

When we get those “gut feelings” that we shouldn’t switch the beef coupon… or that we need to be honest and pay the library fine… or that we should get off the computer and do something productive… It’s the Holy Spirit guiding us into righteousness.

It’s one of the benefits of being a Christ-follower.

It is up to you, however, to choose whether you listen to the voice of truth or whether you choose to act according to your worldly desires.  Unfortunately, tonight I chose not to listen… and I knew better.

We took the kids to see a movie that… according to a kid/family friendly movie review website we visit on a regular basis and gave us the thumbs up… was not age appropriate.  The violence was horrible and my kids saw images they’d never seen before.  They probably never even knew stuff like that happens!

We’re very protective of Sam and Sara and we usually screen movies/TV shows thoroughly before they are allowed to watch them.  The bottom line is that we trusted this website and it was completely “off” on its rating of this movie.

But it’s not their responsibility to protect my kids… it’s ours.  And today, we failed.

Within the first 15 minutes, I knew this wasn’t a movie for my kids to see.   I knew that the battle scenes were too intense and bloody.  I knew that I should collect my family and walk out of that movie… but… I… sat… there.

I did nothing.

The Holy Spirit prompted me a dozen times to get up and do something, but I chose not to listen to the voice of truth.  Why?  I don’t know.  I grieve the little bit of innocence my kids lost today.

Afterwards, my husband and I sat down and talked to the kids about our issues with the movie and asked them to forgive us for not doing a better job of protecting them from those inappropriate images.  It actually turned into a great teaching moment by giving us the chance to explain how we didn’t do what God asked of us that afternoon.  Not that our kids think we are perfect, but it was a great opportunity to drive that home.

It’s so cool, however, to see God will turn something bad into something good.  Even though we clearly disobeyed Him, God handed us a prime teaching opportunity.

From one sinner to the next, I encourage you to listen and follow the prompting from the Holy Spirit!!  And when we do mess up and ignore that check in our spirit, remember to watch for a teaching opportunity for your family and friends.