Dharius Daniels - Living With a Sixth Sense

Spiritual intelligence gives you the ability to live with a sixth sense. I’m going to say that again: spiritual intelligence gives you the ability to live with a sixth sense. So when someone says, «I’m spiritually intelligent,» this is what they’re saying: they are acknowledging that their Creator is the ultimate intellect, that their Creator knows more about them and knows more about life than they do. As a result of that revelation, there should be a revolution in their behavior because it means there is no area of their life or any area in life where He is not an expert. I want to say that again: my Creator, God, is the ultimate intellect. As the ultimate intellect, there is no area in my life, or no area in life in general, where He is not an expert. Logically, then, it makes sense—it makes common sense; it’s smart and reasonable—to say I’m going to allow the decisions I make to be guided and governed by someone who knows everything about everything. This is so important because this sixth sense, this sixth sense, I truly believe, is the key that unlocks the door to success in every arena of life—every single one.

Now, what I want to do is use these different modules, excuse me, these different lessons in this module to help regularly and consistently unpack what I mean by this. I want to start today by walking you through how to actually develop this sixth sense. I would like to spend a lot of time arguing my case here in terms of why you need to live with a sixth sense. What do I mean by that? I mean that there are some decisions you make because of the data, and there are some decisions you make in spite of the data. I’m doing Daniel’s work because of a sixth sense. It’s not just five senses, right? Everybody has five senses, but when you’re spiritually intelligent, you’ve got a sixth sense. There are decisions that are made sometimes based on data, and there are decisions that are made sometimes in spite of data. Someone might assume that making a decision in spite of data is an intellectually inferior decision. I would argue it’s a superior, an intellectually superior decision. Why? Because I’m yielding my intellect to the ultimate intellect.

The reason I didn’t go to law school and instead ended up at Princeton Seminary was because of the sixth sense. The data suggested that after spending four years in undergrad attempting to position myself to do what my parents always wanted me to do— to take care of my family in a way they couldn’t take care of me—suggested that if I didn’t take care of my family, I probably needed to go to law school, not seminary. That’s the data, facts.

So watch this: I had a conversation with a friend of mine not too long ago, and he introduced me to one of his friends, an ex-Marine. Both of these men are incredibly successful in the business world. While talking to them about the sixth sense, I mentioned that if we look throughout Scripture and history, we see examples of men and women who made decisions that ended up creating domino effects in other areas of their lives. They made those decisions because they had a hunch, a sixth sense—something told them to move, to start, to stop, to pursue this training, to get this certification, and it didn’t make sense. Some of you are in Daniel’s day because something inside you said I need to be here, and you’re not even sure why, but you know you’re preparing for something—even if you don’t know what that something is. So, throughout history and all throughout Scripture, we see evidence of these moves, these decisions, these choices that you must make.

I got married based on my sixth sense. It wasn’t that the data wasn’t there; I saw my wife and thought she was beautiful, but it was the timing of it—like, no, this is the one. That’s a lifelong decision; you don’t make that decision without a sixth sense. I mean, without a sixth sense, I wouldn’t have known. Why? Because there are things you don’t know. Tim Keller says this about relationships: he says, «No matter how long you’ve been with somebody, no matter how well you know them, one day you’re going to wake up and roll over to a stranger, ” because life changes people in unpredictable ways that you can’t anticipate. So, I need someone who knows everything to guide my decisions.

That sixth sense that led me to Princeton Seminary instead of law school set off a domino effect that has brought me right here in front of you now. I hope I’m making sense. I don’t want this to be spooky, but I want us to be clear, alright? So, how do I develop this sixth sense? Let me be clear on what I mean here: everyone, religious or not, has what’s called intuition—everyone has innate intelligence. I think that was a point I was making with…