As a science teacher, I carefully prepare what I say to my students. I write out questions I will ask about electricity and magnetism. I make slides with the instructions they’ll need to work in groups.

Similarly, I often rehearse possible conversations when it comes to life experiences. This is especially true with potentially problematic situations or conversations of conflict that might arise. Examples abound. Will I make an unconscious comment that reveals underexamined racism? Will someone at the grocery store mistakenly call me sir again because of my short hair, but will I correct them this time?

Jesus told his apostles he was sending them “like sheep amid wolves.” They were to bring nothing, prepare nothing, and not to “worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say.”

Meanwhile, I walk around rehearsing possible conflicts in my mind: What will I say? What might they say? What clever response will I provide? It takes me down a spiral of imagination that leaves me feeling detached from the space around me, dreading the moments to come, and forgetting my connection with the Holy Spirit, let alone Jesus’ instructions.

Thankfully, there are many times when I’m about to head down a conflict rehearsal spiral when the Holy Spirit intervenes to re-center me on Jesus’ words: “it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

I see what I thought would be a great zinger or an indisputable piece of evidence is now laughable and insignificant. I’m reminded then that trusting in the Holy Spirit is the way to thrive as a sheep among wolves and not become a wolf myself.