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I love that quote. There is a connection here. I’m going to take a little risk and share something that could be perceived negatively. If so, so be it. Two things converged for me recently. First, I read this quote:

“The most important spiritual discipline for pastors who talk about God a lot is solitude and silence; learning to be quiet and create space for God.” – Dallas Williard

Second, the elders at Suncrest give the ministry staff a day a year for a personal retreat and Greg asked us to take it in May this year. Typically I will take a day and do a lot of praying and planning in my ministry areas (flowcharts and everything). This year, however, in light of the quote and some other things I decided to take a day for silence and solitude and spent it at the dunes. Now, I recognize the distinct privilege I have here in that the vast majority of people do not have an opportunity to take a work day for such a thing as this. The reality for a pastor though is that if you give spiritually and you don’t take in enough you starve to death. And I was getting close to that. God used my time of solitude in great ways. He clarified some things for me as well as spoke into my life in a great way. It wasn’t that He had not been speaking, I just wasn’t doing a great job of listening.

I thought maybe God had something else in mind though because as I sat on the beach and was writing some things down, a guy walked by and asked, “Doing a little journaling?”

“Um, yeah,” I responded. Deeply spiritual I know. We did a little small talk and he walked on. I thought at first, well, maybe God wants me to have a spiritual conversation with this guy. I didn’t like that idea because I really wanted to be alone. But, I wanted to be obedient so I talked and listened and the conversation headed nowhere and before long I was headed on down the beach to a very satisfying day alone with God. The tank isn’t getting close to E anymore.

There’s nothing quite like talking God over a freshly ground cup of coffee. That in a sentence describes the community group I am a part of. Last night we talked about Lost, 24, life and discovering God’s Will. What a great combo! Just wait for the post on how we can see signs of God in Lost and 24. 🙂

Through life, I have always been impressed by people who constantly talk about something being God’s will. There have been many times when I wished I could have been as confident as some of them. “How can they be so sure,” I would ask. I have learned that they may not always have the confidence they appear to have, but they do have faith. And their statement, “This is God’s will for my life,” is more of a statement of faith than fact. That is, they have sought God’s direction and this seems to be the compass for their lives.

One resource that I have found extremely helpful in discovering God’s will is the book Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. If you read nothing else this year, read this one. If you are wrestling with questions of God’s purpose for your life then this book will help. Here’s the gist:

Big Idea: God is at work in the world around us, always!

So God’s will is not like this: God is waiting around for us to get on board with His purpose for our lives, otherwise He can not do anything.

Rather, God is working around us and when we see Him at work THAT is our call to join Him. There are some things that help confirm whether or not we are seeing God at work and He is calling us:

• The Bible
• Prayer
• Circumstances
• The Church

All of these together both help us see God at work and they can confirm whether or not He is calling us.

So, if you are wresting with whether or not something is God’s direction for your life, view it through the lens of these 4 questions:
1. Does the Bible say it is wrong?
2. Am I hearing anything in prayer?
3. Do circumstances in my life seem to point in this direction?
4. Do the people in my church, community group, ministry team, that is the people who I am doing life with, agree that this is a “God direction.”

In the end, these questions can help but to follow Christ is always a step of faith. Everything may not be as crystal clear as you want it, but you can have a measure of confidence that will keep you moving in the right direction.

And yes, I was going for the longest post…

One image of God’s Will that is helpful when talking about His general will is to view it as an umbrella. God’s general will which includes things like salvation, purity and even helping people know about Christ form an umbrella that we want to make sure and stay under. With this image the idea is that we have a great deal of freedom to live our lives as long as we stay under the umbrella. Essentially we can do anything we want as long as we are under the umbrella.

It is helpful to remember this image because some get too uptight and worried about making the wrong specific next step. “Maybe it wasn’t God’s will for me to eat at Applebee’s today?” I think that is ridiculous. God cares far more that we are in a relationship with Christ, we have an attitude towards obedience and are seeking to grow than where we are eating lunch. (This does presume that eating at Applebee’s is not against that person’s conscience which is an entirely different discussion for another day I want to put someone to sleep.)

So, to live under His umbrella we need stay consistent in His Word so we can make wise choices. If we don’t know what the edges of the umbrella are then we can’t really stay under it. The result if we don’t? We get all wet! Couldn’t resist.

Hopefully this is helpful for thinking about God’s general will. It doesn’t speak to his specific will which I do believe He does have for us, but certainly we need to understand and pursue His general will before we can get clarity on His specific will for our lives.

I have had some really great interaction about Sunday’s message. One aspect I wanted to comment on further was this thought we get that goes something like this: “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.” I have seen this thought used as a guilt trip for motivating people to evangelize. “If you don’t tell your friend about Jesus, then they will never hear and will go to Hell.” Really? Does it really all depend on me? I certainly believe (and please hear me) that God desires to use us, but if I don’t join God in witnessing, He is going to use someone to reach that person with the message. In fact, anytime we help someone step across the line of faith, He has already used several people. We have just been one among many influences.

It is about God and what He can do, not about us.

We can see this specifically in 1 Corinthians 2:3-5 and 1 Corinthians 3:5-9.

It was God’s power….it’s always God’s power. He certainly wants us to respond to His call so we accomplish good works, but it is about God’s power.

So what does this all mean for us? I think it means this:

We can relax. Yes we want to be responsive to His call, but it doesn’t all hang on us. We can do our best to follow God’s call and trust that it all ultimately depends on God. The result is that we get to experience the joy and blessing that comes from fulfilling the call of God on our life without worrying that everything depends on us.