What’s more, Galatians 5 tell us that, if we walk by the Spirit, we “will not gratify the desires of the flesh,” which include “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy.” Instead, we will experience the fruit of the Spirit, which “is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” If we “keep in step with the Spirit,” then we will not “become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

How long has it been since you have experienced a bit of hatred, discord, jealousy, rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions or envy in your daily work? If you were to ask your colleagues to rate you on each aspect of the fruit of the Spirit on a scale from (1 - never expresses this), to (10 - always expresses this), what ratings would they give you?

If you’re like most people, you might have some room to grow.

If you’re like most people, you might have some room to grow. Let’s consider why we aren’t experiencing more of the Spirit’s fruit, wisdom, revelation and power. I would argue that it is probably because we haven’t put as much effort as we could toward intentionally tapping into the presence and guidance of the Spirit. I would also argue that we don’t do this, in large part, because we aren’t really sure how to go about it.

Attunement: Good news for leaders

Well, I have some good news for you. At Attune, we’ve spent many years learning how to train leaders and teams to do exactly this, and we’ve found that:

1. Most of us can be trained to become more aware of God’s presence and guidance for the specific situations we bring before him; and that
2. When we practice spiritual attunement – meaning we practice hearing God’s guidance and aligning our response with it, we typically find ourselves experiencing more of the power, inner strength, truth, wisdom and revelation that Scripture promises!

We also have found that with ongoing practice and growth in spiritual attunement, we typically become more emotionally healthy, adaptive, spiritually-formed leaders who grow in our expression of the fruit of the Spirit.

Growing in spiritual attunement

So how do we learn how to attune to God?

We learn it the same we learn how to do most things – through intentional practice and repetition. It is a lot like learning how to play a sport – like basketball. Some basic information is needed, but attuning to God is mostly learned through hands-on practice. Exercises that help people develop the muscles, movements and postures of attunement can be really helpful.

The attunement process

At Attune, most of our exercises follow this attunement process flow:

We begin with a specific situation or area of leadership that we are bringing before God.

1. We listen: Listening involves noticing and naming some of the deeper and wider patterns at play, with postures of openness and calm acceptance.
2. We discern: From this place of openness and observation, we then discern. Discerning involves identify what is most important to attend to – coming to our best sense of the key themes we most sense God inviting us to live further into. For this step, we practice postures of trust, dependency and expectancy for God to show us the way.
3. We go: Our final step is to go. This step involves determining and taking next steps that move us in the direction of our best sense of God’s guidance. A key posture shift for this step is to reorient around our best sense of God’s guidance, deprioritizing other motivations or goals that we came into the exercise with.

God rarely reveals the whole picture all at once.

We then remember that attunement is an iterative process, and seek to repeat the process after a few steps have been taken. This is necessary because God rarely reveals the whole picture all at once. Most often, it takes lived experiences in the direction of God’s guidance in order to gain a fuller understanding of the context, how God is moving in it, and how God is inviting us to join in with his work.

Attune: Ready to try it?

Here is a simple attunement exercise that will help you discern and live into more of God’s guidance for this season of your personal leadership:

1. Listen:

   • Consider Leadership Moments: Begin by taking a couple of minutes to bring to mind specific moments related to your leadership over the past three to six months, including:
     • High points, where you felt you were leading at your best;
     • Low points, where you felt you were leading at your worst; and
     • Every day moments, that are representative of how you typically lead.
   • Note Good Patterns: Take three minutes, and ask God to help you begin to notice and write down patterns of thoughts, feelings, actions or motivations in your leadership that are good – operating according to how the God who loves you would want them to operate. (This might include patterns such as “I’ve been more hopeful and diligent,” “I’ve been learning to delegate,” or “I’ve been communicating more clearly,” etc., etc., etc.)
   • Note Broken Patterns: Take three minutes, and ask God to help you begin to notice broken patterns, operating counter to how the God who loves you would want them to operate. (This might include patterns such as “I haven’t been keeping the customer’s best interests in mind,” “I’ve been prone to anger,” or “I’ve made this work product too complex,” etc.)

2. Discern:

   • Read: Read what you have written. Underline words or phrases that resonate as something to which your loving, wise, truth-filled God might want you to pay more attention.
   • Listen: Now pause, clear your mind, and simply listen for God to bring to you just one or two key themes, or “guideposts” that you most sense God inviting you to live further into over the season ahead. As things come to mind, listen for things that have an underlying voice that is loving, wise and truth-filled.

3. Go:

   • Test: First, test your best sense of God’s guidance:
     • Does it conform to the truth of Scripture?
     • Does it engender the fruit of the Spirit?
   • No? Unpack further: If the answer to either of these is “no,” we encourage you to unpack this guidance further – through journaling, or better yet, through discussion with a trusted, spiritually mature friend.
   • Yes? Take action: If the answer is “yes,” then we encourage you to come up with one or more near-term, actionable next steps you will take to move in the direction of your guideposts. This might include finding ways to keep your guideposts in front of you, having a difficult conversation, researching a few options, etc.

If this exercise has been helpful for you, we encourage you to repeat this exercise every three to six months, allowing God to continue to mature and develop you as a leader as he grants you more of his wisdom, power and strength.

If you would like to go further in developing your attunement capabilities, here are several guided exercises to help you tap into God’s presence and guidance for your hour-by-hour challenges of leadership.

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Tracy Mathews is the founder and Executive Director of Attune. Through facilitated workshops, Attune offers tools and training to help teams slow down, listen deeply, and tap into more of God's guidance for the decision making, strategic direction setting and team building of organizational leadership.

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