Trusting Our Inner Experience

A friend of mine was recounting a story recently where she was supposed to fly to Atlanta. The night before the flight, however, she had a dream that she was not supposed to get on that plane. So the next morning, she changed her ticket – costing her a decent amount of money. While she recounted that nothing she knew of happened to that flight, she said, “I am not getting on a flight that a dream told me not to. I don’t care what it costs!”

Throughout Advent, we hear a lot of stories about dreams (and/or otherworldly interventions like angelic visits) and people making big decisions based on these dreams or visitations. Mary consents to bearing Jesus. Zechariah decides on the name John. Shepherds seek out a location for the Christ child. The astrologers from the East choose a different way home. And in today’s gospel Joseph decides to stick with Mary in spite of knowing that she is pregnant.

What I find quite amazing about the stories of scripture is how much people trusted their own inner experience. They saw their own spiritual experience and knowing as valid, true and substantive. When I think about how I grew up, so much of my faith experience was about distrusting inner experience and relying instead on an outer authority. 

But the figures that we encounter during Advent allow themselves to be led by something deep within them. We might call it trust. Or courage. Or faith. But whatever we call it, they moved into an uncertain future without any promise of success or security. They relied on the mercy and care of a God who loved them and who promised to be with them on the journey.

Perhaps we, too, are being asked to move forward in faith these days and to trust an inner inkling, visitation or dream. Maybe an “angel” has visited you somehow and has announced something new into your life.

While sometimes these invitations and announcements are welcomed, sometimes they are not. They could be asking us to do something that we have been longing to do for some time. They could be asking us to do something that is hard for us. Sometimes it is both all at once! No matter what it is, can we trust that we will be cared for even if we cannot see or feel it right now. The path in front of us might require risk of some kind without the assurance of outcomes.

This is never an easy place to be, but maybe as we move forward in Advent our practices of silence and slowing down will give us access to our inner voice that might act as a guide. It might nudge us in small ways or invite us to do something grand, or maybe just helps us get through another day.

How much we willing to trust it?