Impulse or Inspiration?

I didn't feel like I was acting under inspiration this morning. I just thought: If I'm going to be on a bus for half an hour today, I might as well bring my headphones so I can listen to the background music as I play a game on my phone. But the headphones stayed in my pocket all day. I didn't even get my phone out during the bus ride. At a certain point, I figured: Well, I guess it didn't really matter whether I brought my headphones or not.

But it did matter.

Before heading home, my mom and I visited my sister, who is currently in a hospital room with a roommate, and she mentioned that she wished she had some headphones so she could watch videos on her computer without disturbing her roommate. Without a word, I took my headphones out of my pocket and handed them to her. Right now, she needs them more than I do.

Now, God knew that that was going to happen. He knew that Mom and I would visit Miriam and that Miriam would mention not wanting to bother her roommate. He knew, long before I did, that I would lend my sister my headphones, if I brought them with me.

I don't think it was just good luck that I happened to grab my headphones before I left home this morning. I think God helped me make that decision. But like I said, I didn't feel like I was acting under inspiration this morning. If anything, I mostly felt like I was just acting on an impulse. And maybe I was. Maybe it was just luck. Or maybe, after I decided to bring my headphones, God seized the opportunity and influenced the conversation in such a way that would lead me to lend the headphones which I had randomly grabbed to my sister, who could really use them. Maybe I wasn't inspired to bring my headphones today. But I think I was. I think it's a little bit too much of a coincidence for God not to have had a hand in it.

Inspiration is trickier than I thought. I always knew that God speaks to us with a "still, small voice," but I always assumed that, when we didn't hear that voice, we would just do whatever we felt like doing, and as a result, things wouldn't turn out as well. But this time, things turned out swimmingly well, and it would have taken a small miracle to set this up, yet I didn't feel like I was acting under God's direction this morning. Perhaps God's influence in our lives is more subtle than I had thought.

I know that God works miracles, especially in the lives of those who strive to follow Him, but I had always thought that those who were following God's will to accomplish some miracle would know that they were acting under God's direction. But that might not always be the case. It may be that people occasionally act under the influence of the Holy Ghost and not realise it until afterwards. Or it may be that God uses our impulsive decisions to create miracles and His improvised plans are so good that it seems like our earlier decisions must have been part of God's master plan from the beginning.

However God did it, He performed a small miracle today, and I was a tiny, unwitting part of that miracle. I'm glad that I decided to bring my headphones with me today, and I'm grateful for any influence God may have had in helping me make that decision. I wish I knew whether I had been acting under inspiration or not, but either way, things worked out wonderfully well, and I'm grateful for that. I didn't use my headphones today, but I know someone will, and I thank God for making that possible, whether He did so through inspiration, improvisation, or both.