Article October 22, 2012 Issue

Divinely impelled?

Roberta Wallace

One evening as I was about to take a left turn onto a heavily traveled four-lane street, I looked and saw no one coming toward me, no one waiting to cross or in the crosswalk in front of me or to either side. Proceeding into the intersection to make the turn, I heard a very calm and plain directive that urged “look again.” The clarity of this message was unmistakable, so I looked and there in the crosswalk was a woman with a red-tipped cane. I did not see her on the corner waiting when I looked earlier. I don’t know where she came from, but suddenly she was there. I stopped. Wordlessly grateful and washed with relief, the atmosphere in my car was full of a presence above and beyond human power.

Yielding to divine impelling promotes health, harmony, and order.

Why did I obey this thought? Wasn’t it just “my own thinking” or rumination, imagination, or human caution? I suppose—except the logic, urgency, simplicity, and wisdom of this impelling was not to be ignored. The intuition was preventive, caused no harm, brought peace, and took little effort to follow. The feel of truly divine impelling is described expertly in the Bible’s book of James, “The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy” (3:17).