catapult magazine

I’m curious as to what other people think—What does it mean to be led by God?

a couple i respect very much gave me a very simple way to look at it. we say we wish God would just send us a notecard to let us know what we’re supposed to do, but He sends us notecards all of the time. we just have to look for them, add them up, see which side is greater.

for example, this couple was considering whether or not to go on a mission trip for which not many others had signed up. cancel or go, cancel or go? then, a person from church who seemed to have a very fragile faith said, “if you go, i’ll go.” notecard! they went.

spiritual math, maybe. God gives us clues and we can choose to follow the rules or we can choose not to play.

i just wanted to add a quote that i really like, even though it’s a quote within a quote. personally i think people should just make their decisions with their brain because if God wants to tell you something, I think you’ll know. this quote comes from phillip yancey, who is quoting frederick buechner:

“Some [evangelical Christians], he told me, reminded him of American tourists in Europe who, not knowing the language of their listeners, simply raise their voices. Such Christians spoke confidently about matters Buechner thought veiled in mystery, and their certitude both fascinated and alarmed him. ‘I was astonished to hear students shift casually from small talk about the weather and movies to a discussion of what God was doing in their lives. They spoke of ’prayer diaries’ and used phrases like ‘God told me. . .’ If anybody said anything like that in my part of the world, the ceiling would fall in, the house would catch fire, and people’s eyes would roll up in their heads.’”

for what it’s worth. it made me smile.

lb.

While I think that clues, brains and intuition are all part of the equation, I feel that ?being led by God? can be a lot more specific than that. We can use our brains and our experience to come to a decision or solve a problem, but so can anybody: Christian, other God-acknowledging person, agnostic, or atheist; God doesn?t have to be in the process, at all. Depending on how good our thought processes are, the decision may be good or bad. It can also be GOOD, but not necessarily RIGHT – i.e., it may be rational, but it may not be the BEST solution for the times or for the person.

I like Jesus telling his disciples not to worry about what they were going to say, because the Holy Spirit would give them the right words for the right time. James said that if any of us lack wisdom, we should call on the Holy Spirit for answers. We don?t have to act completely on our own, but I think most of us who are Christians fall back on our own intellect much of the time, and don?t really expect the Holy Spirit to guide us in specific ways. Most of us don?t really think in terms of personal communication with God. We know he?s up there somewhere, and we know he?s ?watching out for us,? but we?re really not taught to expect specific answers to specific questions. But that?s what his Holy Spirit is for.

It?s not enough to just believe that God will tell us what we need to know; we need to have a proactive relationship with the Holy Spirit. I?m not talking about ?being filled with the spirit? or having some secret Holy Spirit handshake. I?m talking about acknowledging the Comforter the same way we acknowledged God and Jesus. At some point, I accepted that there was a God. At another point, I accepted my salvation through Jesus? sacrifice. At another point, I said ?hey God, I believe that your Holy Spirit is here as our contact, and I accept all the help he can give.? It is the EXPECTATION that you have a partner to go with your knowledge and intuition that makes the difference between just walking through life, and being led by God.

Religion for Thinkers:
http://www.netcom.com/~symbios/relig.html

maybe i phrased it poorly. sure anybody can use their brains and their experience to come to a decision—but i think that a christian has had different experiences, and understands different things, and has different goals than (let’s say) an agnostic. and for a christian, God is in the process. a person’s thought process isn’t like a line of code a computer processes—it’s much deeper than that and includes brains, experiences, but also beliefs and trust and prayer and so on. i guess what i’m saying is that for a christian, a thought process should be deeper than mere rationalism—but once you’ve made a decision you don’t need to be paralyzed with doubt, wondering whether you chose the right magic door, whether your decision was “God’s will.”

and i don’t think there’s a problem acknowledging that God can and does give direction at various specific times by various specific means, but there is a problem if you start looking for that kind of a thing as an everyday thing, as though you have to wait for some sign before any decision is made instead of using the decision-making skills you’ve been given. i think that in general, supernatural signs are the exception rather than the rule, and when you look back, you’ll see how God has used your decisions in ways you hadn’t expected, or maybe even directed you in a way you didn’t understand at the time. so i think the Holy Spirit is always at work in us, but mostly invisibly, even in our thought processes.

lb

okay, i’m resurrecting an old topic with a related question.

my husband and i are at a time when we are faced with a lot of important decisions. and that got me wondering the other day…

does God’s will consist of a designated path that we’re to follow in life for which we should always be seeking clues?

OR

is doing God’s will a matter of desiring to do God’s will, and in that desire, any path we choose will be used for His ends?

or is is something altogether different than these two possibitilies? or both? there’s a different sort of comfort in each one.

B.

I think God gives us what we need to accomplish his will (whether it’s a dream, vision, sermon, or “using your brain” in discernment or wisdom). If we’re trying to do something outside his will, He may make it very hard for us. Many times He also calls us to do things that difficult and require us to have greater levels of faith and obedience.

Thinking of it as a path is one way. But it’s not like if we miss one turn, we’re lost for good and in the wilderness. I think it’s more like the further we stray off God’s plan, the harder the road is. A perfect life might be a highway, each sin of rebellion or disobedience adds a pothole or just takes you on a longer route to God’s intended destination. I know this is a muddled analogy.
There are many books written on the subject, some are geared toward practical application, some are geared toward understanding and defining differences between God’s perfect will and determined will (or whatever theological terms they might attach to it).

On a tangent, I’ve read the Buechner quote before and I don’t like it. I realize he’s speaking from his experience with religion and God. But many people feel hopeless about never truly having intimacy with God. My earthly father talks to me, and loves me, and (when I was a child) disciplined me because I was his son. He does’t make me go off in a wilderness and fast for a week before seeking his counsel. How much more loving and gracious is our heavenly Father?

Kirstin, I think it’s more of the second option. One of my friends put the question to me this way: Do you think you can do God’s will equally well no matter where you are?

When she said it that way, I thought, well, yes. But I’m still confused about it, as you are. I heard a sermon recently, maybe it was this past Sunday, on how desiring God’s will is really doing God’s will.

It’s interesting where this discussion has led. When I began it, I was thinking about a couple at my school in Haiti who had made a grand committment to staying in Haiti for life, and getting the school out of a horrible lack of leadership. Then, halfway through the year, after making all these committments, they told everyone that God had led them somewhere else. A lot of us felt as though they were trying to make it really difficult for people to find fault.

For me it’s always seemed like a sort of either or scenario—either I was doing my will, or I was doing God’s. Anyone else ever felt this way? I don’t think it really is, but it’s hard to stop thinking that way.

It’s true the most important thing is to desire God’s Will. That involves a lot of different things. I believe desiring his Will is a condition of the heart, but it’s also involves action: reading the Word, praying, asking friends or pastors for advice, etc.

The Lord’s prayer says “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. So we have a part in ushering in God’s kingdom on earth.

If we follow Jesus’ two commandments (which is easier said than done), then the other stuff more or less falls into place.

Knowing the will of God is something that I will seek for the rest of my life, and I will never have all the answers, but that just makes me rely on God more.

The fact that society has evolved to the point where we have so many choices (about our careers, where to live, what religion to commit to, who to marry etc.) sometimes seems like more of a curse than a blessing. Paul’s instructions in I Corinthians about remaining where you are called doesn’t seem to speak to this society where we are liberally educated and able to use a wide variety of gifts in several areas of life.

But the Old Testament narrative directly relates to the relationship between our decisions and God’s Will. It’s full of people who make the wrong decisions (Adam, Eve, Cain, Moses, Jonah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, David, Solomon, Samson…ok, it would be easier to list those who made good decisions) yet God still is able to work out our salvation, despite thousands of years of wrong human choices.

As far as God telling us exactly what to do, I don’t think the Bible supports that. Putting out the fleece for direction from God was a sign of Gideon’s unfaithfulness (Judges 6); it’s not a model for us as Christians. Without the Holy Spirit, the people of the Old Testament are forced to rely on such “signs” because God was so distant before the coming of Christ. But this is the mystery. How is it any easier now to hear God’s Spirit? If God is so close, why do we still feel like God is far away?