God always has a plan. Most of us spend a lot of time trying to discern what the plan is and how we fit into it. That may not be as difficult as it seems. There are a few things that will certainly help us in this regard.
Do not be intimidated. When we have an appropriate fear of God, we understand that we cannot understand Him in any large measure. This is the reason the human soul falls so short in attempting to quantify God. We think we should be able to somehow measure everything. God is immeasurable. He does not come in cups, or feet, or meters, or even in space, and He exists outside of time. All our measurements fail to give us even the slightest idea of how big, what, or who God is. The only way we can know anything about God is through His word, the Bible.
The New Testament was originally written in Greek. Time and space limitations prohibit us from discussing how the Bible came to be. We Christians believe we have enough evidence to determine the words that comprise it are God breathed. In fact, the Greek word, logos, translated "word" literally means, "everything that can be known about the subject at hand." In other words, when we understand the Bible as the "Word of God" we know it contains everything that can be known about God. The Bible says it is the Word of God and also refers to Jesus as the Word of God making each of them the complete representation of God. When we understand the Bible, and when we know Jesus, we know all that can be known about God. That can be a little intimidating. He is so big and we are so small. Then again, that is the whole point. A God our size would not be of much help when we come to the end of our resources.
Understand your personal vision. Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint..." Think of it this way, when we are not hearing from God and cannot see what He is doing in our lives, we are naturally inclined to do whatever we think is right. We have been reminded several times in these pages that the way of man always leads to death. When we do what seems like the right thing to us, we always go the wrong direction. It almost seems redundant then, to say that if we are listening to and heeding the voice of the Holy Spirit, we will be going the right way.
Develop your personal relationship with God. Of course the advice here is the wisdom of the ages in the church. Pray, read your Bible, and be in fellowship with other believers. That is still excellent advice. As usual, there is a word of caution there. It goes with the third piece of advice.
It is my considered opinion that the church of today is a far cry from what it should be. If we assume that to be true, continuing in fellowship is not a fail safe to keep us unspotted from the world. (James 1:27) We need to be in fellowship with the right group of believers. How would we find that right group? Trust me, that is not all that easy. I know. I have looked. Okay, how about we work this backwards? What would the single most important issue here be? Would it not be finding the place God wants us to be? Darn, that only brought us full circle to finding what God's plan is for us?
What if we save the third piece of advice above for third place? Now we might be getting somewhere. Remember, the order was, pray, read the Bible, then be in fellowship. I know, most people think they do not hear God. Nothing could really be further from the truth. We hear God all the time. We just do not recognize it is Him talking to us. Let me leave you with that thought for now.
Prayer is not just talking. Talking is only half of prayer. Prayer is supposed to be a dialogue, not a monologue.
Talk and then listen. Do you hear anything?
No.
Talk and then listen. Now do you hear anything?
Maybe. I kind of had a thought pop into my head. Could that have been God?
What was the thought?
Oh, just something about someone I am not walking in love toward as I should be. Someone I offended.
Does that sound like something in the Bible?
Yeah.
Maybe it is God. Are you going to do anything about it?
I guess I should.
Does that sound like any kind of experience you might have had in the past? Maybe it was God speaking to you. Have you done what He told you to do? If the answer is "No" that might be why He has not said anything else. Just a thought.
I started this post to say, I can see God's plan unfolding in my life. I have no idea what kinds of twists and turns might come along the way. The indications are they could be unfolding quickly now. There may be an exit in the near future. If there is it is all good. If not, it might be even better. If you know me at all you know I will keep doing what I am doing until God gives me something different to do. See you soon.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Saturday, July 17, 2010
O God, What Have I Done
Editor's note: For those of you who have trouble discerning between deadly serious and tongue in-cheek-in these pages, please be assured, this is the latter--especially the title.
I am probably feeling just a little intimidated today. I know many of you are wondering why it has been almost a month since anything was published on this blog. The answers to both these questions are the same. We are going to go ahead and publish this even though it could cause a little discomfort if the wrong people read it within the next few weeks. After that, this will all be a recording of historical events.
I really was just frustrated, and maybe a little righteously angry. (I always hesitate to use and variants of "righteous" and "angry" in juxtaposition, but if this is not a case of righteous anger then my whole premise here is actually a deception.) For the third time in a matter of a few weeks, I was put in the uncomfortable situation of having to deal with a program participant whom I had already dismissed from the program for a rules violation. Each time, they had appealed my decision and were allowed to remain in the program. They had each managed to find other ways to violate the rules. Rather than being able to sit at my desk and say, "I told you so." to the person who had overridden my decision, I was asked to rectify the situation by telling the client a second time he would need to pack his belongings and leave. I was doing a slow burn. It was the end of the workday. After completing the task, I tried to put it out of my mind. That was working pretty well until I got into bed.
Now why is it the Holy Spirit waits until we are settling down for the night or just about to be awake in the morning before dropping important things into our spirits? Maybe you do not have that problem. I know, I should be listening all day long rather than just at those times. He is probably speaking at other times, but hey, I am a busy guy. I simply do not have time to be still and listen at other times. He must understand that. Why does He have to sneak up on me when I am trying to rest?
So I am crawling into bed and the anger over the event is just below the surface. That is when my mouth got me into trouble yet again. I said, "God, something has to change. I am tired of cleaning up his messes. Either he has to go or I have to go." It almost seemed like an innocent enough prayer at the time. Then why did it work so well when lots of others do not?
Perhaps you have uttered a prayer and BAM! it was answered fast enough to make your head spin. This one was all but that fast. The thing is I did not understand how much work God was going to have to do in order to answer that prayer. The prayer concerned my main antagonist, the person who had the authority to override mine. There were, however, two other, minor antagonists who needed to go before he did or they would have continued to inhibit the effectiveness of the program and be thorns in my flesh. (If this post were not satirical, I would probably remind us all that we do not battle against flesh and blood and that the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but spiritual. I read those things somewhere and I believe them.)
This all started, as nearly as I can recall, almost three months ago. The two, minor antagonists mentioned earlier are gone. The first one was gone within days of my prayer. So I could have titled this post something like, "Now There Are Three." By the way, if you read the previous post, you know we were sent an intern to fill in a few gaps in the schedule. That did not work out so well, but now we have another one. This time it is going a little better.
Currently, we are at a stalemate. We will have a new director in about two weeks. My strongest impression is that soon after that, my original prayer will be answered. God seems to have put everything in place for that to happen. Either he will be gone or I will be gone. There are a couple factors not mentioned here that make it more likely he is the one who will be going, but time will tell. In the meantime everyone at the mission, staff and program men, are holding on, hoping this is as bad as it gets. Right now no one with any authority has the will to make any changes. O God, what have I done? It seemed almost like an innocent prayer.
Often in counseling sessions with the men, it comes up that when we have a vested interest in one outcome over another, we subconsciously--or maybe even consciously-- attempt to make our desired outcome happen. I am doing my best not to have a vested interest in the outcome of this situation. If I stay, I will continue to work diligently and see lives changed at the mission. If I go, there are other things to do. It does not matter to me one way or the other where I work or even what kind of work I do. For now I am doing what I do and I am going to keep doing it until I do something else. Did I mention I could really use a vacation?
I am probably feeling just a little intimidated today. I know many of you are wondering why it has been almost a month since anything was published on this blog. The answers to both these questions are the same. We are going to go ahead and publish this even though it could cause a little discomfort if the wrong people read it within the next few weeks. After that, this will all be a recording of historical events.
I really was just frustrated, and maybe a little righteously angry. (I always hesitate to use and variants of "righteous" and "angry" in juxtaposition, but if this is not a case of righteous anger then my whole premise here is actually a deception.) For the third time in a matter of a few weeks, I was put in the uncomfortable situation of having to deal with a program participant whom I had already dismissed from the program for a rules violation. Each time, they had appealed my decision and were allowed to remain in the program. They had each managed to find other ways to violate the rules. Rather than being able to sit at my desk and say, "I told you so." to the person who had overridden my decision, I was asked to rectify the situation by telling the client a second time he would need to pack his belongings and leave. I was doing a slow burn. It was the end of the workday. After completing the task, I tried to put it out of my mind. That was working pretty well until I got into bed.
Now why is it the Holy Spirit waits until we are settling down for the night or just about to be awake in the morning before dropping important things into our spirits? Maybe you do not have that problem. I know, I should be listening all day long rather than just at those times. He is probably speaking at other times, but hey, I am a busy guy. I simply do not have time to be still and listen at other times. He must understand that. Why does He have to sneak up on me when I am trying to rest?
So I am crawling into bed and the anger over the event is just below the surface. That is when my mouth got me into trouble yet again. I said, "God, something has to change. I am tired of cleaning up his messes. Either he has to go or I have to go." It almost seemed like an innocent enough prayer at the time. Then why did it work so well when lots of others do not?
Perhaps you have uttered a prayer and BAM! it was answered fast enough to make your head spin. This one was all but that fast. The thing is I did not understand how much work God was going to have to do in order to answer that prayer. The prayer concerned my main antagonist, the person who had the authority to override mine. There were, however, two other, minor antagonists who needed to go before he did or they would have continued to inhibit the effectiveness of the program and be thorns in my flesh. (If this post were not satirical, I would probably remind us all that we do not battle against flesh and blood and that the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but spiritual. I read those things somewhere and I believe them.)
This all started, as nearly as I can recall, almost three months ago. The two, minor antagonists mentioned earlier are gone. The first one was gone within days of my prayer. So I could have titled this post something like, "Now There Are Three." By the way, if you read the previous post, you know we were sent an intern to fill in a few gaps in the schedule. That did not work out so well, but now we have another one. This time it is going a little better.
Currently, we are at a stalemate. We will have a new director in about two weeks. My strongest impression is that soon after that, my original prayer will be answered. God seems to have put everything in place for that to happen. Either he will be gone or I will be gone. There are a couple factors not mentioned here that make it more likely he is the one who will be going, but time will tell. In the meantime everyone at the mission, staff and program men, are holding on, hoping this is as bad as it gets. Right now no one with any authority has the will to make any changes. O God, what have I done? It seemed almost like an innocent prayer.
Often in counseling sessions with the men, it comes up that when we have a vested interest in one outcome over another, we subconsciously--or maybe even consciously-- attempt to make our desired outcome happen. I am doing my best not to have a vested interest in the outcome of this situation. If I stay, I will continue to work diligently and see lives changed at the mission. If I go, there are other things to do. It does not matter to me one way or the other where I work or even what kind of work I do. For now I am doing what I do and I am going to keep doing it until I do something else. Did I mention I could really use a vacation?
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