God's small, quiet tuggings

Do you ever have those times when you feel like you're supposed to go to something or somewhere or do something? I have, and I've come to realize that most of the time that's God speaking to me.

Take last Saturday night for instance . . . I really didn't feel like going to church, as a matter of fact it was the last place I wanted to go. I tired to to justify my not going that evening, by telling myself I would go in the morning instead, all the while knowing full well that I wouldn't get up in time to go on Sunday morning either. No matter what excuses I made for not going I couldn't justify it in my mind. So, I got in my car and headed for church . . . telling God on the way up there that I really didn't want to be going.

But, as usual in those situations, once I got there and the service started, I knew that I was supposed to be there. God wanted me to hear and be a part of the service that night, and He made sure it happened despite my efforts to make it not. (I'm still making sense of it all that night, so I won't be going into details about why this time.) As the service progressed I knew unmistakably that God had wanted me there that night.

In the week since then, I've been thinking a lot about listening to that small, often quiet tugging in your heart. I wonder how many times I've ignored it and missed on what God had in store. My guess would be that it's happened more times than I realize.

So, then I started thinking about how I can get better at listening to it and responding to it. I know that part of this is making sure that I'm walking in step with God in my life in general. I've begun to think that another part of getting good at recognizing this is listening to that tugging and following through on it when I do hear it. Like I did last Saturday night . . . I need to do what that tugging is telling me I should do when I do recognize it. By paying more attention to it, I will learn to recognize it better.

What about you? Are there things that you do to recognize these tuggings on your heart from God?