You’ve probably heard it—that voice that tells you that you shouldn’t do a particular thing, or that says you’ll need to take this direction, or that. When you have listened, you may have found that something you thought was right, was not the right thing to do after all, and you were saved from a lot of grief.  

I’ve learned through Christian Science that God, divine Mind, is always communicating to us, and that we are God’s ideas. And Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy states, “The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man” (p. 284). The “voice within” is evidence of this. It is spiritual intuition, that calm, clear sense of God’s direction, coming as the Christ, the divine message that is always speaking to human consciousness. 

The Bible is full of instances where receptive listeners saw God’s direction made manifest in their lives. In First Kings 19 we read about Elijah, and the time when he saw the wind tear apart the rocks on the mountain, felt a strong earthquake, and saw a fire. But we read that the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire. Then Elijah hears “a still small voice.” 

This voice revealed to Elijah what he must do, and as a result Elijah was sustained and cared for. In the Good News Bible this still small voice is referred to as a “soft whisper of a voice.” It may indeed seem like a whisper at times, but it is powerful and always present for us to hear. And sometimes it can seem to human thought like a thunderbolt.

In the most blustering and windy times, earth-shattering moments, or fiery experiences, that “still small voice” still leads us—to safety, to a life transformed, and to what it is that we need to know in order to help bring about healing.

The Bible is full of instances where receptive listeners saw God’s direction made manifest in their lives.

As a 12-year-old girl I had what you could say was a fiery experience. I was considered mature and responsible enough to baby-sit for a family who had moved into a brand new home down the street. They had a six-year-old daughter and a one-year-old baby girl. I put the baby to bed upstairs in her crib at bedtime and then went downstairs with the little girl to watch TV.

Later, I felt the room getting warmer. I stood up and wondered why. The voice within urged me to look out the back window. So I pulled back the curtain and looked outside. There were red-hot ashes falling from the upper story. In disbelief I thought: “Oh no! What do I do? The baby’s upstairs.” 

My legs wouldn’t move. I felt firmly led to take the little girl to the front door—to open it and have her stand there as I went upstairs to get the baby. I then ran up the first flight of stairs. As I reached the second flight, flames were coming out of the master bedroom. I turned around in a circle to look at the little girl standing below, and I told her that if she did not see me come right back down the stairs, she was to run to my house, which was nearby. Again I looked at the flames, coughing and not knowing what to do. 

Remembering the first line from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal, with words by Mary Baker Eddy, “Shepherd, show me how to go” (No. 304), I began to sing. As the comforting truths in this poem came to my thought, I was directed to get on my hands and knees and crawl to get the baby. I dropped to my knees and crawled, grabbed the baby from her crib, ran down the stairs, grabbed the little girl’s hand, and ran to my house. I yelled, “Fire!” as I was leaving, and a neighbor called the fire department.

When the fire department finished putting out the fire, which had been caused by faulty wiring, the fire captain talked with me. He took me upstairs and showed me a wall that had melted into the baby’s crib. He asked me how I got the baby out. I told him, and then he asked me how I’d known to crawl and stay low. I hadn’t learned to do anything like this before, so I told him “something told me to do that.”

I recognized that night how protected we were. That voice within was more powerful than the fear of the fire. I couldn’t say no to it, and I knew I wasn’t alone. Spiritual intuition allowed me to recognize that the Christ is always shepherding us.

Spiritual intuition allowed me to recognize that the Christ is always shepherding us.

My older sister let me sleep in her room with her that night because I was a little shaky from the experience. I asked her how I’d known to do those things when I’d been so scared. She told me that it was God telling me what I needed to do. It was God loving us, and I needed to thank Him. And you know what? I think I said thanks to God in my thoughts all night long! 

We read in the Bible that “there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding” (Job 32:8). This understanding of Spirit, this knowing, has led me many times over. In The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, Mary Baker Eddy says, “When error strives to be heard above Truth, let the ‘still small voice’ produce God’s phenomena” (p. 249). Erroneous thoughts, dangerous situations, hopelessness, all can be addressed and overcome through listening to that “voice within” and following Truth.