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Written by Tom for Pastor Jim Lee for “The Domain for Truth” @ veritasdomain.wordpress.com
Original post @ https://veritasdomain.wordpress.com/2024/09/22/guest-post-contrary-to-popular-opinion-your-gut-isnt-always-right/
Guest Post: Contrary To Popular Opinion your Gut isn’t Always Right
September 22, 2024 by SLIMJIM
Note: This is a guest post by Tom. Tom is a dear brother and friend on WordPress and I appreciate his faithfulness and ability to write so many posts on here. His blog can be found here.
After my wife and I accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior through faith alone in 1983, we attended a Gospel-preaching, fundamentalist church that was HEAVY on the legalistic side. I have good memories of the church, but also some bad ones. It’s difficult to have joy in the Lord when guilt and shame are the “motivators” regularly coming from the pulpit.
At one service, Pastor John (I’ve changed people’s names for the purpose of this post) was preaching about feminism and he understandably didn’t have a lot of good things to say. He related that men and women have characteristics/qualities that are unique or more dominant according to their gender and are therefore better suited for particular roles. As an example, Pastor John claimed that women had an intuitive sense while most men were clueless. He used his wife, Paula, as an example, saying, “After coming home from church, I’ll remark to Paula, ‘Isn’t so-and-so such a great guy?’ And Paula will say, ‘Watch out for so-and-so. Don’t turn your back on him.’ My reaction is always, ‘Naw, not so-and-so.’ But sure enough, two months later so-and-so is causing some kind of trouble.”
I remember that sermon like it was yesterday. First of all, that’s definitely not something a pastor should reveal to their congregation. Every church member was thinking, “Hmm, I wonder what Paula says about me?” And then there’s this thing about women’s intuition. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that women as a general rule have a higher EQ (emotional quotient) than men. Women (generally) deal in emotion while men (generally) avoid emotion. Women can probably pick up on social cues a lot better than men. That’s said, it’s risky to use only emotion/intuition or “a feeling” as the arbiter in any evaluation or decision. It sounded like there also could have been an element of pride in Paula’s alleged acute sense of intuitiveness.
The sermon I’m referring to above was delivered around 35 years ago. Flash forward several decades later. John’s son, Peter, succeeded him as pastor of the church in 2011. In 2017, Peter was charged with molesting three young women who had been attending the church. He resigned as pastor and eventually accepted probation as part of a plea deal. Did Paula have an intuition about her son? I’m guessing she didn’t. In 2021, 71YO John was charged with sexually abusing two underage teenage children and also accepted probation as part of a plea deal. Did Paula have an intuition about her husband? I’m guessing she was oblivious.
Sorry for the shocking turn of events, but there’s a spiritual lesson in all of this.
The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it? – Jeremiah 17:9
Intuition and feelings only go so far. Only God knows what’s going on in people’s hearts and minds. The “gut feeling” we have about someone or some circumstance could be entirely incorrect. We need to be in the Word daily and to commune with the Lord regularly in prayer. We need His wisdom and discernment and mustn’t depend on our own fleshly intuition. Even then, our insights into another person’s heart and mind are limited.
For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” – 1 Samuel 16:7
Would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. – Psalm 44:21
Intuition is overrated. There’s a danger in making snap judgments about people.
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