Your Attention Please

If you listen closely, you might realize that someone is trying to get your attention. How To Know God's Trying To Get Your Attention by Kristina Long at Relevant

It took me a while to understand the application of the Bible's story about Jonah and the whale. Maybe it came quick for you, but not me.

In case you're not familiar, the story of Jonah goes something like this:

A man named Jonah was asked by God to go Nineveh and talk to people who lived there. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh or talk to the people who lived there.

Jonah hid from God by getting on a boat headed away from Nineveh. A storm came. The people on the ship knew someone on the ship caused God to be angry. Jonah told them to throw him overboard so the storm would stop. Jonah was thrown overboard and the storm stopped.

Jonah’s death did not fit with God’s plan. God wanted Jonah to go to Nineveh. God sent a large fish to swallow Jonah, where he stayed for three days. Jonah turned back to God and prayed. The fish swam to Nineveh only to spit Jonah out on the shore. Jonah inevitably did what God asked.

Now, a lot of trouble, turmoil, and stress could have been easily avoided had Jonah just done what God had asked him to do in the first place. Jonah did not listen to God. He feared God’s plan and chose a different route.

I live in a little town in Idaho town that I love. I love my job, the people, the recreation and God’s beautiful creation all around me.

A year ago, I felt God’s call for me to step up, which made me fear I'd have to leave my little Idaho town. I applied to a graduate program nearby so I could keep living my way.
I even did it under the guise of, “This program will help me to serve God better.” I did well in the program: good grades, learning everything I could etc.

I felt transformed to do more. My pride grew and I became satisfied with my work for God.

That’s the issue, isn’t it? It is not me who needs to be satisfied with my work for God. God is the one who works in me and through me. God is the one who transforms me. My intentions and love for my town were great, yet my lack of trust in God made me fearful of the future.

My fear made me lose sight of God and his plan. Instead I focused on my plan for him.

God's Will Revealed

Do you wish you could accurately and completely know the will of the Lord for your life? Check ou God Has Already revealed His Plan For Your Life: It Doesn't Have to Be AS Complicated As You Think by Greg Darly via Relevant

When trying to discern God’s will for our lives, it is tempting to spend all our our time in prayer. God, what do you want me to do with my life? Should I take this job? Should I move to that city? Should I enroll at the school? Should I marry him? Should I break up with her?

The list of prayers could run on till eternity. But what if the key to discerning God’s will for your life was to stop praying so much about it?

I went through a season a few years ago when God was eerily quiet. When I prayed for direction or insight, there was nothing but silence. The conversations typically went like this. Maybe you can relate.

Me: God? What do you think I should do?

God: (silence)

Me: God, I really want to do your will. Can you tell me what that is?

God: (the sound of crickets)

Me: God, will you give me clarity on what I should be doing?

God: (more silence)

Me: God? Are you even listening? I can’t hear you. Will you answer me?

Day after day, the conversations continued in the same fashion. I would ask God for an answer on a decision, and in return, I would hear nothing. I was at a crossroads, and honestly didn’t know what God wanted me to do. I prayed. I sought counsel. I prayed more. God was incredibly silent.

I realized that my issue was not not hearing from God; my issue was relying on God to make me obedient to what He had clearly spoken.

Early one Saturday morning, I snuck away before anyone in my house was awake and went to a favorite spot in downtown Greenville. The Reedy River cuts through downtown and cascades down multiple waterfalls. At the top of the falls are numerous benches and tables. I love to watch the sun rise above the falls and enjoy the quiet of the morning while reading and drinking a latte from a local coffee shop.

As I was reading the Bible that Saturday, I was again struck with the frustration of not knowing what God wanted me to do. I prayed, God, I really want to do your will. And I will do it, but first I need to know what it is. I mean, how could God expect me to do His will if He wasn’t telling me what it was, right?

As I was praying and reading, I was struck by a simple word from the Lord. It was great on the one hand, because it was the first time in months I’d felt anything fresh from God. But it was frustrating on the other hand, because it was nowhere near the level of detail I desired.

God reminded me on the bench overlooking the waterfall that He had already given me many insights into His will.

In fact, I was currently reading part of His will for my life. In front of me, my Bible was open to the book of Philippians. I continued reading, but this time, the words on the page jumped out at me. I heard God say, “You want to know what I want you to do? Start by being obedient to what I’ve already commanded you. I’ve given you a lot to do. I want you to have my attitude and mindset. I want your life to look like mine.”

I looked down and read Philippians 2:14—“Do everything without grumbling or arguing.” It was like an explosion of dynamite. In an instant, God’s Word burst through the fog of silence. God had spoken clearly about what He desired from my life.

I kept reading and wrote down all the actions and commands I could implement immediately in my life, along with the corresponding Scriptures.

After a few minutes of reading and writing, I had pages of decisions and actions I knew would take a long time to implement. I was overcome with joy that God had spoken!...

Read the rest at the link.

The Burden of Getting It Right

From Nathan Mann at the Liberate website - God's Will for Your Life:

“I feel like that’s God’s will for my life.” “I just need to find God’s will for my life.” “I don’t really know what God’s will is for my life.”

As a college student, these three phrases can be heard regularly from my circle of Christian friends whenever the topic of what the future holds comes up in conversation. Common in our shared Christianese, “God’s will for your life” is a mystery everyone is trying to figure out.

That’s a problem.

God’s will was never meant to be a mystical enigma that we try to decipher. It’s not a magical recipe and we need to discover and then follow in order to please God. Unfortunately, in many of today’s churches, that’s exactly what “the will of God” has come to mean. When we ask ourselves what God’s will is, there’s a subconscious follow-up question beneath it: How can I do things that will make God happy with me? Christian culture is so keen on “application”—another Christianese word that might be translated as “making ourselves better people”—that we overextend it to areas that God never intended.

But Jesus has already clearly defined God’s will:

“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40).

God’s will is for people everywhere to come to salvation through saving faith in the work of Jesus Christ.

But there’s more.

Look two chapters earlier, John 4:31-34:

“Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, ‘Rabbi, eat.’ But he said to them, I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, ‘Has anyone brought him something to eat?’ Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work.’”

Don’t miss the tremendous implication of these verses: the overwhelming task of saving sinners was food to Jesus, his very sustenance. A task that would crush anyone else literally fed Jesus; it was his life’s mission to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

This is the profound, life-altering truth about God’s will: God’s will is Jesus’ job. It’s his sustenance. It’s done.

In light of this, we can finally be honest and admit that the question we really want to ask—the question we’re masking by asking “what is God’s will for my life?”—is simply “what do I want to do?” And that’s ok! In Christ you are free to live life without the overwhelming question mark of “am I getting God’s will right?”

Guidance Confusion

From What We Get Wrong About Finding God's Will by Chandler Vannnoy at Relevant Magazine

God's will is not a mystery to be solved but a road to be traveled.

What is God’s will for your life?

This question tends to haunt us while we go through our college years. We struggle through it by choosing our major, deciding where we will spend our summer, figuring out where to go to grad school, and so many other decisions.

If you are like me, anxiety creeps up on you every time you think about your future plans.
But why do we get so anxious? For me, I start thinking about how I have one opportunity at every decision I make, and when I choose one path, I am saying no to another. But how do I know the path I choose is the right one?

The phrase we have all heard in answer to this question is we need to find God’s will for our life. And for the past 21 years, I thought I had to keep praying for God to open my eyes to the will he had laid out for me. That if I just kept searching long enough and hard enough, I would know exactly what I was supposed to do in the future.

But Kevin DeYoung blew up this idea for me while I was reading his book Just Do Something.

We Never Find God’s Will for Our Future

In the beginning of the book, DeYoung says, “We should stop thinking of God’s will like a corn maze, or a tight-rope, or a bull’s eye, or a choose-your-own-adventure novel.” This rocked my world. I always thought that if I made a wrong decision or took a wrong turn, I would be removed from God’s plan.

But what he is saying here is that we are free from the burden of trying to discover God’s will ahead of time. It is not a maze for us to perfectly navigate in order to reach our end goal, but instead, God desires for us to trust Him with all of the twists and turns.

Yes, God is sovereign over my life. Yes, He has specific plans for my future, but He does not expect me to find out the details of His plan before I get there. So this whole idea of finding God’s will for my life has been me searching for something God does not want to reveal. But why does He choose to withhold His plans from us?

An Unknown Future Leads to Faith in a Known God

If we knew every step and detail of our lives, there would be no reason for us to have faith in God. When times get tough, we realize we need someone greater than ourselves to direct where we are going. That’s why God doesn’t always want us to know the perfect road He has laid before us. It would be like someone spoiling the incredible plot twist of Fight Club or Inception. What makes the story great is the confusion and uncertainty, and then in the end, every puzzle piece comes together to create a beautiful picture.

Not only does God have an epic plot for your life, but He wants you to trust in Him. God has given us these tough decisions not to be stressed out but to make us realize we can’t do this on our own. He gives us more than we can handle, so we are forced to lean in on Him to find strength. Just as Provers 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” So instead of praying to find God’s will, let’s start praying to find faith in God’s guidance.

Love Me Through My Journey

Oh Father, Who Keeps My Journey

Father of all humankind,
who keeps my journey
and marks the horizon of my destiny,
love me through my journey toward tomorrow.

Son of God,
leader and keeper of the maps,
show me not the whole road at once,
but give me the distance to be gained in single steps.

Spirit of God,
who holds my inner compass,
may your presence on the journey
awaken trust within me
when I don’t know what lies around the bend.

- Calvin Miller, The Path of Celtic Prayer: An Ancient Way to Everyday Joy

Hat Tip: Trevin Wax

A Tuesday Link List

Some random links from my Internet browsing:

How to Listen to Joel Osteen Unto the Glory of God

Why Won't God Just Tell Me What to Do?

Matthew 18 and the Internet

How Many Chinese Christians Are There?

Lot's of other bloggers post these link lists. Perhaps it is time for me to make an occasional foray into this style of blogging. What do you think?

Forget about God’s Will for Your Life?

Are you seeking God's ultimate destiny for your life? Ever asked yourself if that search is fruitless, or even if it is what you are supposed to be doing?  Or maybe we should Forget about God’s will for your life!

“I think a lot of us need to forget about God’s will for my life. God cares more about our response to his Spirit’s leading today, in this moment, than about what we intend to do next year. In fact, the decisions we make next year will be profoundly affected by the degree to which we submit to the Spirit right now, in today’s decisions. It is easy to use the phrase ‘God’s will for my life’ as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes. It’s safer to commit to following him someday instead of this day. To be honest I believe part of the desire to ‘know God’s will for my life’ is birthed in fear and results in paralysis.” (120)

God wants to listen to his Spirit on a daily basis, and even throughout the day, as difficult and as stretching moments arise, and in the midst of the mundane. My hope is that instead of searching for ‘God’s will for my life,’ each of us would learn to seek hard after ‘the Spirit’s leading in my life today.’” (120)

“The Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is not someone we can just call on when we want a little extra power in our lives. Jesus Christ did not die in order to follow us. He died and rose again so that we could forget everything else and follow him to the cross, to true Life.” (122)

Quotes from Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Francis Chan

What do you think?

See also Seeking an Unmessianic Sense of Non-Destiny

Facing Plan B

Just started reading Plan B: What Do You Do When God Doesn't Show Up The Way You Thought He Would, by Pete Wilson, lead pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville, TN.  Some Quotes:

"Your dreams may not be happening, and things aren't turning out the way you expected, but that doesn't mean your life is spinning out of control.  It just means you're not in control."   Page 22

"The greatest of all illusions is the illusion of control."   Page 31

"I've noticed that those of us who have trusted our heavenly Father with our eternities often have a tough time trusting him with our tomorrow."  Page 61

"...When you respond in your current circumstances as if you were confident that God is there, you will see God in the circumstances... Because the simple truth is that God is there.  God is always there.  The problems come when we allow our circumstances to distort our perspective and we miss God."   Page 68

Grace & Decision Making

"Sometimes Christians speak of each decision of their lives as though they were launching a moon-shot where a single miscalculation would send the capsule into a trackless void. Even space scientists do better than that, correcting the flight of the space-probes by radioed signals. God does much better. He knows that we are often incapable of distinguishing trivial decisions from momentous ones, and that we are foolish and imperceptive. He knows--and he keeps us in his hand."

-Ed Clowney, Called to the Ministry, p. 77

Hat Tip: Buzzard Blog: Decision Making