Today’s devotional time in each of the readings from the devotional books to the bible talked about the results of impulsivity. Not only did they talk about it, they labeled it as sin. Oswald Chambers said that impulsivity is a part of our human nature and we want to respond to it due to our humanness. Christ had learned to discipline any impulsivity so that he responded only to God’s leading. Chambers said that in our christian walk we are to learn to replace impulsiveness with intuition. Intuition is the voice of God’s Holy Spirit within us while impulsiveness is the voice of our human nature.

I’ve never taken a step back and looked at addictive behaviors as an impulsive response to living. Yet, as I do look at this I can see it plainly. Whatever the motivation is to satisfy an addiction, it comes from an impulsive thought–“oh it’s ok this time”, “oh, this one is fine”, “no one will care”, and the list could go on and on. It is truly a selfish response to living life.

When we are nudged by God’s Spirit to do something it can seem as though it is an impulsive step. However, the difference is that there are no red flags from our spirit in acting on it. We likely have the “what if” thoughts but they aren’t followed by secrets. Any impulsive action we take will usually be followed by knowing I won’t/can’t tell.

I am going to spend some time on this topic. I know God is wanting to grow me in this arena of living each day. One area I do know He wants me to grow is trusting intuition as His Spirit’s Voice. When I am given a nudge I want to ponder it. This is true with impulsive thoughts and it is true for intuition with me. God is wanting me to learn to separate them so I’m going to step into this as my lesson to grow.