Intuition is a divine attribute. It is the opposite of that false sense of instinct which is animal in nature and utterly without intelligence. Intuition is defined in a dictionary as "knowing, without recourse to inference or reasoning;... insight.... Immediate apprehension." Spiritual intuition is a great asset and an ally of the preventive art of Christian Science. Nowhere in the Scriptures is this brought out more strikingly than in the story of Noah. It enabled him to foresee and forefeel the calamity that was about to befall the earth, and therefore to forestall and annul it for himself and his family. We read (Hebr. 11:7), "Noah,... moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house." Sometimes intuition may appear to human sense to take the form of fear. It took that form many times in the Bible. Almost always when an angel appeared men were afraid! But always the angel had a message for them; indeed, the angel was the message. Joseph was warned in a dream of Herod's wicked plot. That, of course, may have taken the form of fear, which compelled the use of wisdom expressed in taking the young child and his mother and fleeing to Egypt.
When we are planning some new and progressive step or some wise undertaking, how we need to take our young child and hide it from the gaze of mortal mind. In the case of Noah there came with the intuition wonderful wisdom and foresight which gave him the idea of building a ship or ark to preserve life. Now it is most interesting that in the whole undertaking Noah never made any human plan. It all came from above. It was always the voice of God, or divine intuition, that spoke to him and told him what to do. Indeed, it is a remarkable fact that in the whole record Noah himself never speaks. God does all the talking. How different to the method of prayer some people employ! It is sometimes one long monologue on their part, hardly listening for God's reply, and even advising Him as to how their desires shall be granted. That is not true communion. Noah was evidently a wonderful listener. To what did Noah listen? To the voice of Truth in his own consciousness. This building of the ark must have caused much ridicule and speculation on the part of Noah's neighbors and friends, but it did not deter him. He trusted his intuition. Here is a lesson for us. How we need to trust our intuitions—never to ignore them, but to heed and obey them.
I remember one of our lecturers telling me that during a long journey to fulfill an engagement he was filled with sudden fear of an accident. He recognized it as a direction, intuitively discerned, to destroy fear. He worked and prayed instantly, handling the belief and affirming the presence and omnipotence of God, divine wisdom, to save and preserve. At the end of the journey he was told that a terrible accident had miraculously been forestalled and averted.
