The Space Between Words: Recognizing Divine Deference

Sometimes wisdom arrives not as a gentle visitor but as a fierce protector, rising up from somewhere deep in the body.

Last week, during a quiet morning practice, a voice inside me spoke with startling clarity: "You cannot trust counsel from people who do not defer to the Divine."

It wasn't harsh or judgmental. It was protective - the way a mother bear might warn her cubs about which streams are safe to drink from. This inner knowing had been watching, noticing patterns, keeping track of who left me feeling expanded and who left me feeling somehow... lessened.

When the Body Knows

You know that feeling when someone's words sound right but something in your chest tightens? Or when someone speaks with absolute certainty about spiritual matters, and instead of feeling inspired, you feel inexplicably tired?

Our bodies are exquisite instruments of discernment. They know things our minds haven't caught up to yet.

What my body has been trying to tell me - what that fierce internal voice finally articulated - is that there's a particular quality in people who genuinely defer to something Greater. You can feel it. It's not in their words or credentials. It's in the space between their words. The pause before they speak. The way they hold complexity without needing to wrestle it to the ground.

The Hollow Ring of Certainty

I've noticed something about spiritual teachers, healers, advisors who don't have that quality of deference: their certainty has sharp edges. Even their compassion can feel performative, like they're following a script labeled "How to Be Spiritual."

They might say all the right things about surrender and divine will, but watch what happens when their authority is questioned. Watch how quickly the mask slips. Notice how they need you to see them as the source rather than the channel.

There's a hollowness there - like a bell that's been cracked. It still makes noise, but it doesn't ring true.

What Deference Actually Feels Like

People who truly defer to the Divine don't advertise it. But you can feel it in their presence:

• They have this quality of wait. Not hesitation, but a listening pause, as if they're checking in with something before responding.

• They can hold "I don't know" without shame. Actually, they hold it with a kind of reverence, like not-knowing is a doorway rather than a failure.

• Their confidence doesn't need to dominate the room. It's more like a river - powerful but not aggressive, following a course that's been carved by something beyond their own will.

• They laugh at themselves easily. Not self-deprecation, but genuine delight at being human and fallible while serving something infinite.

I think of my friend who's a chaplain. When someone is dying, she doesn't rush in with answers. She sits. She breathes. She creates space for whatever wants to emerge. "I'm not the one doing the work," she told me once. "I'm just holding the door open."

That's deference.

The Cost of Forgetting

I'll be honest - sometimes I forget too. Sometimes I grip too tightly to my own knowing, speak too quickly from my own understanding. The feedback is immediate: conversations become effortful, guidance feels forced, and I end up exhausted from trying to be the source instead of the vessel.

But here's what I've learned: the moment I remember to defer - the moment I internally whisper "Show me" or "Not my will but Yours" - everything shifts. The tightness releases. Words come that I didn't plan. Solutions appear that I couldn't have orchestrated.

It's like the difference between trying to push a door open and realizing it opens the other way.

Why This Matters Now, Today, For Us

We're swimming in a sea of people claiming spiritual authority. Instagram prophets and TikTok shamans. Coaches who learned their wisdom from a weekend certification. It's not that they're bad people - many genuinely want to help. But without that fundamental deference to something Greater, they can only take us as far as their own understanding.

And friend, we need to go further than that.

We need guides who remember they're not the mountain but the trail marker. We need healers who know they're not the medicine but the one holding the cup. We need teachers who bow internally even while standing at the front of the room.

A Practice, An Experiment

Try this: For one week, notice the quality of deference in the people around you. Not their religious language or spiritual credentials, but that subtle quality of reference to something beyond themselves.

Notice how you feel after conversations with people who have it versus those who don't. Notice whose presence leaves you feeling more connected to your own wisdom versus whose presence leaves you feeling like you need what they're selling.

Your body will tell you. That tight chest, that subtle exhaustion, that feeling of being slightly off-center - these are signals that someone is operating from their own power rather than deferring to the Divine flow.

The Invitation

May we become people who inspire trust not through our certainty but through our reverence.

May we remember, again and again, to check in with that Greater Wisdom before we speak, act, or advise.

May we have the courage to walk away from those whose spiritual authority doesn't bow to anything beyond itself.

And may we trust that fierce, protective voice inside us that knows - without explanation or apology - who is safe to receive our tender seeking and who is not.

Because that voice? That's deference too. That's the Divine protecting us through our own deep knowing.

And we can trust that.