All my life I have been waiting for the "call" of God. All my life I have waited at the corners of my life for God to say however softly, "go left" or "go right". I've been waiting for the thunderous audible voice of the Lord, "Go to Africa!!!!!" etc. I have never heard it. There have been important moments in my life where God has given direction even recently with my stepping down from youth ministry He spoke to me and told me now was the time. There have been important moments in my life where God has said No and Yes, but more often than not, when I am seeking direction, God seems silent. I have had so many moments where I was standing at the fork in the road and yelling to the heavens, "JUST TELL ME God! LEFT OR RIGHT?" I've watched the skies for clouds in the shape of an L or R. I've prayed for a squirrel to come down out of a tree and make an arrow out of nuts on the road. Something ANYTHING! I've even suggested to God easy ways for Him to direct me like, "Ok God if you want me to go left send a wind from the left, and if you want me to go right send a wind from the right!", or my personal favorite "Alright God I'm going right and if you DON'T want me to go right have a black cat cross the road in front of me." Anything I can do to MAKE God speak to me I'll try it. Even threatening God. "If you don't talk to me I'm going to just do what I want to do and you will be to blame if it all falls apart!" I think maybe that is the point. We want to be sure that, whatever we are going to do it is going to succeed. We don't want to RISK anything, and we want a scape goat to blame if it all falls apart. "Well this was YOUR idea God so it is YOUR fault!"
I am learning slowly but surely that God's will for our lives is not as.... mysterious as I have always thought it was. God wants us to do what He has made us to do, and He wants us to be happy to do it.
You see, in the church culture that was my upbringing there is a lot of talk about, "what is God's will for my life", and callings, and direction, and I am glad there was. It taught me never to make a decision without talking to God about it first. It gave me the rock solid understanding that God is the one that is the ruler of my life and that when He calls you say yes without hesitation! It taught me that God still speaks to His kids. What I never learned was what to do when God doesn't speak. What do we do when God is silent? I want to explore this over the next few blogs. I want to give you some insights that I have been getting and I want to dialogue with some of you few readers of this hopefully holy ramble I call a blog.
Also I have begun another blog on Wordpress - for two reasons, #1 I'm looking for something better than Blogger and #2 I am a little bit of a web junky and I have to be involved with whatever the cool new web thing is. That is the only reason I'm on Twitter and Facebook! Sad isn't it. I plan on continuing to blog here on Blogger but maybe have a little different focus on the other blog. I moved all my posts to that blog too so all my old posts and comments are already over there as well as here, but the new posts will be more directed toward family and relationship issues whereas this blog is all about my personal walk with Christ. Let's call this one my First Commandment Blog (love the Lord Your God with all that you are) and the other my Second Commandment blog (Love your neighbor as yourself)! You can find the other blog at www.fromhimthroughhimtohim.wordpress.com if you are at all interested!
2 comments:
You are seriously tripping me out!
Greg and I JUST started this discussion LAST night. We are reading a book called "In the Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day" by Mark Batterson. I am not big on book recommendations, but this is seriously changing my view on a LOT of things.
We are looking and praying about some MAJOR changes in our life as well.
I too am blogging my journey. It is therapeutic.
Looking forward to sharing the journey for awhile...
I know what you mean. Sometimes God likes to keep things secret. Honestly, if God told me everything about my life I would run away scared. God has recently been expressing His desire for me to pursue my writing. So recently He has been more vocal. I will pray that you get some tantalizing details about what His plan is for you. Since you grew up in church I KNOW you have heard this before. Our walk with God is more about everyday faithfulness then it is about huge life decisions and life callings. I am sure as Joseph sat in the prison he was begging God to explain Himself. But as God cultivated Joseph's ability to interpret dreams He was also setting Joseph up for the biggest promotion of his life. How was Joseph to know that the butler would happen to have a dream Joseph could interpret and then Pharaoh would happen to have a dream and the butler happened to mention Joseph's name. Sometimes God takes our small talents and secretly weaves a story of miraculous proportion. As you know just because you know the calling of your life doesn't mean you will have any ability to accomplish it. Sometimes being unaware of your overall calling is just a way for God to get all the credit. Love you brother.
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