Sometimes when God shows us how He works in our lives, we can anchor our perspective or actions or approach in that experience. Actually, it’s not uncommon, and entire doctrines or even church movements have been birthed out this. It can be seen in some formulas that have arisen in the church. I see it most often in prayers. Someone prayed for healing and God answered! So we tend to start searching for and repeating the words or phrases used like they are the magic formula that God responded to before. In the many prayer meetings I’ve sat in, I often hear the same catch phrases repeated (yes, I’ve done the same thing hoping that I’ve got it right). But how is that relationship? Its really no

different than the other religions that repeat meaningless phrases or prayers the do not even understand. This can be seen in other area as well. It could be heard in the response, “but we’ve always done it this way!” Or perhaps “this is how we do evangelism, because it was so effective before.” But David understood this differently. In I Chronicles 14:8-17, we read how the Philistines came against David and the first thing David did was seek the face of God and ask two questions: 1. should I engage in the battle? and 2. Will You give me victory? God answered “yes, go, you will win.” And so David went head on and defeated them. Shortly after that the Philistines came again to the same valley. But instead of assuming he should even attack them again the same way, David inquired of God again. But God told him not to attack like last time, but to flank them and wait for the sound of their marching in the trees and then attack them. So David obeyed and was victorious a second time. How many things do we do because it worked last time? How often do we just charge ahead with a proven approach or tool without actually asking Holy Spirit two questions: should we take action? and how should we take action?