Free and In His will
“God told me to…” “I can’t discern God’s will…” “I’ve been called…” “If God would just tell me…” What does all that mean, anyway? The answer is of particular interest to me simply because during the past week, as I've learned more about this topic, everything in my faith life has seemed to reduce itself down to the lowest common denominator. It’s like in Tetris, when you get that one long piece you’ve wanted for so long, and the tangled mess that was your game suddenly swings back in your favor. That’s how I feel after coming to this understanding.
Ever since I first heard God’s still, small voice several years ago, I’ve been intensely interested in a conversational relationship with the Maker of the Universe. The exhilaration I feel when God speaks is indescribable – more intimate and life-changing than falling in love, as serious and private as two lovers conversing. Yet it does come with its own confusions and frustrations. Here are a few observations I’ve gathered over the past couple of years in regards to God’s relationship to man:
1) He doesn’t “speak” to all Christians. He may use feelings, ideas, urgings, emotions, scripture, dreams or another person to relate through the Holy Spirit.
2) There is no better or worse way to experience God; He relates to everyone differently, as expected from a God who knows us all intimately.
3) People sometimes “hear” what they want to hear – whether or not it was God speaking.
4) Even when I faithfully and diligently seek to hear His voice about things I am concerned with, He is often silent.
5) “God said” and “God’s will” are often used to manipulate and “spiritualize” actions.
6) If you mention God speaking to you, people stare at you like a man sharing his alien abduction experience.
Given my experience hearing God along with the observations listed above, I came to the uneasy conclusion that maybe God isn’t all that concerned with most of the details of my life. Maybe, I thought, He’s only concerned with how I live my life – if it’s for His glory and out of love for Him. However, this idea did not align with the God of Deuteronomy (and a great deal of the old testament), who seems painstaking interested in the details. I came to find my conclusion is half-true. Here’s an excerpt from the book Hearing God by Dallas Willard, which uses the biblical “husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church” analogy to explain our ideal relationship with God. This quote has literally transformed my thoughts on living free in God’s will, enjoy:
“The beloved (husband), who both loves and is loved, does not want to order the lover (wife) about; instead the beloved desires that the lover understand what is needed so that few orders are necessary. In this union of souls – in the conscious delight and rest in one another that is the highest and most exalted relationship possible between two persons – it is not right for one person to always tell the other what to do. And so it is in our union with God, a person both loving and beloved. He (God) does not delight in having to always explain what His will is; He enjoys it when we understand and act upon His will. Our highest calling and opportunity in life is to love Him with all our being.”
In other words, God is intensely interested in the details of our life – but doesn’t want to constantly order us around. Like the lover in the above quote, he wants us to “understand what is necessary so that few orders are necessary.” In matters such as your job, your mate, your finances – speak openly with God, but know you are free to choose and still be in His will; primarily, He wants us to reach a state of mature love in which we will make every decision out of love and the desire to honor Him.
Does this mean we don’t need a conversational, walking relationship with God? On the contrary, a wife and a husband ideally share everything going on in their lives, work through issues and spend countless hours together on building their relationship. In that instance, knowing each others will and desires is natural. If we fall out of that kind of relationship and try to make decisions on our own, we are like a wife that leaves her husband, moves to a new town and still expects her actions to please her husband.
The resulting conclusion I have come to is that I have a tremendous amount of freedom in making choices in my life. It means that I don’t have to worry myself sick over whether my decisions are “within” God’s will or “what God desires.” In many situations in my life, God may very well ask, “Brad, what is it that you want?” He gives His children this freedom when He knows their whole self is aligned to serve and please Him. Occasionally, God will give us an outright order, often referred to as a “call,” but that seems more rare than not. In an intimate, conversational relationship with our Lord, we are truly free to live out our desires while still being completely within His will. We are “free, we are complete!”
If you want to learn a lot more about this topic, read Dallas Willard’s Hearing God. It is extremely challenging!
Ever since I first heard God’s still, small voice several years ago, I’ve been intensely interested in a conversational relationship with the Maker of the Universe. The exhilaration I feel when God speaks is indescribable – more intimate and life-changing than falling in love, as serious and private as two lovers conversing. Yet it does come with its own confusions and frustrations. Here are a few observations I’ve gathered over the past couple of years in regards to God’s relationship to man:
1) He doesn’t “speak” to all Christians. He may use feelings, ideas, urgings, emotions, scripture, dreams or another person to relate through the Holy Spirit.
2) There is no better or worse way to experience God; He relates to everyone differently, as expected from a God who knows us all intimately.
3) People sometimes “hear” what they want to hear – whether or not it was God speaking.
4) Even when I faithfully and diligently seek to hear His voice about things I am concerned with, He is often silent.
5) “God said” and “God’s will” are often used to manipulate and “spiritualize” actions.
6) If you mention God speaking to you, people stare at you like a man sharing his alien abduction experience.
Given my experience hearing God along with the observations listed above, I came to the uneasy conclusion that maybe God isn’t all that concerned with most of the details of my life. Maybe, I thought, He’s only concerned with how I live my life – if it’s for His glory and out of love for Him. However, this idea did not align with the God of Deuteronomy (and a great deal of the old testament), who seems painstaking interested in the details. I came to find my conclusion is half-true. Here’s an excerpt from the book Hearing God by Dallas Willard, which uses the biblical “husband is to the wife as Christ is to the church” analogy to explain our ideal relationship with God. This quote has literally transformed my thoughts on living free in God’s will, enjoy:
“The beloved (husband), who both loves and is loved, does not want to order the lover (wife) about; instead the beloved desires that the lover understand what is needed so that few orders are necessary. In this union of souls – in the conscious delight and rest in one another that is the highest and most exalted relationship possible between two persons – it is not right for one person to always tell the other what to do. And so it is in our union with God, a person both loving and beloved. He (God) does not delight in having to always explain what His will is; He enjoys it when we understand and act upon His will. Our highest calling and opportunity in life is to love Him with all our being.”
In other words, God is intensely interested in the details of our life – but doesn’t want to constantly order us around. Like the lover in the above quote, he wants us to “understand what is necessary so that few orders are necessary.” In matters such as your job, your mate, your finances – speak openly with God, but know you are free to choose and still be in His will; primarily, He wants us to reach a state of mature love in which we will make every decision out of love and the desire to honor Him.
Does this mean we don’t need a conversational, walking relationship with God? On the contrary, a wife and a husband ideally share everything going on in their lives, work through issues and spend countless hours together on building their relationship. In that instance, knowing each others will and desires is natural. If we fall out of that kind of relationship and try to make decisions on our own, we are like a wife that leaves her husband, moves to a new town and still expects her actions to please her husband.
The resulting conclusion I have come to is that I have a tremendous amount of freedom in making choices in my life. It means that I don’t have to worry myself sick over whether my decisions are “within” God’s will or “what God desires.” In many situations in my life, God may very well ask, “Brad, what is it that you want?” He gives His children this freedom when He knows their whole self is aligned to serve and please Him. Occasionally, God will give us an outright order, often referred to as a “call,” but that seems more rare than not. In an intimate, conversational relationship with our Lord, we are truly free to live out our desires while still being completely within His will. We are “free, we are complete!”
If you want to learn a lot more about this topic, read Dallas Willard’s Hearing God. It is extremely challenging!
posted by Brad at 11:30 PM
1 Comments:
Good Observations, Brad. I do believe people qualify their decisions about things by attaching, "this is what God is leading me to do," or "I have peace about this."
The bridegroom illustration of Jesus' relationship to the Christian is far more complex than what is typically preached. When a wife learns her husband prefers how he likes his eggs fixed, the wife does not need to ask every time. She fixes them the way he likes with out having to ask. She is confident in it and if her husband wanted something different, he would say so.
Another thought: God does not repeatedly tell us things that he has already said in His Word. Scripture is God telling us what to do. He might show us or remind us of a particular scripture, but He NEVER directs us to do something contrary to what the Word says. Nor does God think part of scripture should be more focused on than others. Loving the lost and praying to God go hand in hand; one part can not be separated from the other.
Last thought: God rarely and I mean maybe once in a blue moon, does not want us to share the Gospel with a stranger or friend. 99.999% of the time God wants us to talk about Him with who ever we are talking to. Rarely does He say, "I don't want to you share the Good News with this person." It is kind of like the deal with the eggs above. I think God gets irritated with us when we continually ask, "should we share with this person or not?" OF COURSE WE ARE TO SHARE, WHY DO WE KEEP ASKING GOD WHEN WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER.
Post a Comment
<< Home