When I was trusting God for a wife, I wrote a long list of what I wanted in a wife and started praying about it. I gave God a deadline of December 2009. That was before I was called up for NYSC. I was expecting a dramatic encounter where I will see her in a vision or hear an audible voice. Surprisingly, God did not speak to me that way.
When I saw that nothing happened, I gave attention to other things and continued with my life. I expected audible voice or a thunderous voice but none of this came. Eventually, when I met my wife, I did not see any vision, no thunderous voice and earth-shaking encounter. I just knew in my spirit that she is my wife after spending time in prayer.
At first, there was a bit of confusion because when I expected God to speak to me about a wife, he didn't. More so, I was leading a fellowship where we were not permitted to propose marriage to any sister. My mind tuned off against relationship. When I sensed she would be my wife, I spent extensive time praying and sharpening my spirit to get clarity. This went on for about ten (10) solid months.
After both of us left office as fellowship executives, months after we returned home, I proposed to her. No dramatic encounter, no vision or thunderous voice from heaven neither was there any earthquake. How did I know she was the one for me?
There is something called INWARD WITNESS. It is the witness we get from our spirit about any matter. The inward witness is an intuitive knowing we have about a thing from within our spirit. We just know that "XYZ" is the way to go just as we know our skin is ours.
No sane person wakes up and starts checking his skin to see if it is his own. You have never doubted that your skin is yours because there is a deep-seated knowing you carry around about the ownership of your skin. That is just how inward witness works.
On any matter, you can pray in the Spirit to the point you will have a knowing from within that a course of action is the way to go or not. If it is the way to go, you will have peace about it even If nothing around suggests it is a good decision but If it is not the way to go even If it seems like the best decision, you will lose your peace about it anytime it comes to your mind.
God has created our spirits to pick signals from heaven about his mind on any issue of life. Our spirits work like traffic lights. When the traffic light signals red, it means stop. Sometimes, when God doesn't want us to embark on a course of action, we'll sense a weight of restraint pulling us back.
When the Lord is giving a go ahead, it comes like a traffic green light giving us a marching order. This can become your regular experience in your decision-making as you pray more in the Spirit. Being led by the Spirit through inward witness is the primary way the Spirit leads.
Dramatic encounters may be counterfeited by Satan because he also speaks audibly and shows visions too but the inward witness of the Spirit to our human spirit is safe.
