As I was browsing Michael's MySpace, I came across the following eloquent quote:
"Poor human reason, when it trusts in itself, substitutes the strangest absurdities for the highest divine concepts."
- St. John Chrysostom
One of my friends is making, from my vantage point, a horribly rash and unwise decision. And, all the while, he is calling it "God's will." It makes me ill. He says, "Why not? 'God' is leading us in this direction. It's quite simply a 'God thing.'" Perhaps I'm out of touch with God's voice, but I don't see how this type of ridiculous and unadvised decision can possibly be under the realm of "God's will."
Am I guilty of trusting too fully on "poor human reason," or is he? I cringe each time I hear someone mention "God's will for her life." How do we ever really know His will? Yes, I did the Experiencing God Bible study. I know that the Sunday School answers include: the Holy Spirit, His people, and His word. And, yet, I am unsure that he rains down revelations of his will that are distinctly not our own leanings. I know: If I'm filled with the Spirit, my desires should be His own urges. I've heard it.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
This is OBVIOUSLY God's will for my life!
at 9:08 PM
Talking about Faith, Friends, relationships (of the confusing sort)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Yeah... I am baffled by this whole event and the certainty of some friends and family that this is God's will. I can recall several times in my life where I really believed that God's will was clear and that I knew where he wanted me to be. And guess what? I was wrong! One particular incident, on which you and I have conversed several times, wasn't just a bee in my bonnet - I had His People confirming my hopes all along the way. So... here is my conclusion, jaded as it may be:
It's all bullshit.
Although I (think I) disagree with you, I'm glad that you feel like you can say what you think.
I must confess that I've never been able to accurately discern God's will through any means other than the Word. For example, the few times I went overseas, I knew that I was commanded to Go. So, I went. But, I don't know that God had a preference over which college I chose or which boys I chose to date. I often said that I could sense God's will in something, but I think I said it just to make me feel better about my decision.
I confess that I don't trust the Holy Spirit.
Sherry, it sounds like you trust the Holy Spirit just fine. You wrote, "I've never been able to accurately discern God's will through any means other than the Word." That is a very refreshing sentence to read. I think that is the only way God gives us to clearly know His specific will.
This extra-biblical way of discerning God's will is dangerous I think. I have heard people say that God guided them to do things like marry a non-Christian and break their word: two things that go directly against God's word in the Bible. Yet they are convinced it is God's will. I guess I would say I don't have a problem trusting the Holy Spirit - I just don't trust my own heart. So unless its in the word, I'm not going to try to pin my decisions on God.
1.) God is still talking.
2.) People aren't listening.
3.) People will twist authority figures based on their whims.
4.) God is still talking.
You desires may not be his own urges. Sometimes we want to do something, but he is specifically telling us to go against our inclinations. You just have to to tune into his radio station, because God is still talking.
Mark,
Thanks for your thoughts. I think we agree on many points.
So, how are we to discern between our own hearts and the Holy Spirit? Should a Christian never attribute to God extra-biblical wisdom for a decision? My instinct says that the answer to my last question is "yes." At least I say “yes” when I consider my own faulty discerning skills. And, yet, the Christian world is full of "God's Willers."
How is this different from attributing to God daily happenings? For example, "I had a close call with that car, but I managed to swerve in time. God was really watching out for me." Or, what about our sister, Lois? We all decided that there was no way to explain the evaporation of her cancer, but to attribute it to God's desire to have her back in Vietnam. It's back!!
Once again, there seems to be a fine line between our decisions/regular life “stuff” and God's hand. It sounds as if I am promoting a dichotomy between humdrum life and God. I’m not. I just have a hard time discerning me from Him…and, not in a “His Holy Spirit’s flowing through me” kind of a way. More accurately, in an “I know I’m a mess, so I can’t trust myself” kind of a way.
Thanks for taking the time to mull this over with me.
Wifey (AKA Stephanie),
If you’re reading this, I’m sorry that we haven’t gotten a chance to chat recently. You can expect a call from me very soon! I love you.
I wanted to clarify (not that I am afraid of being judged, or that I even think anyone besides you, Sherry, read my comment ;-P) because I seek accurate understanding of my words.
God is not bullshit. Although I am certainly not in a place where I feel comfortable with calling myself a Christian, or even expressing a belief in God, I am not, at this time, stating that belief in God is belief in bullshit.
I meant that the whole God's will/misinterpreted/people claiming to justify personal desires is bullshit.
There are plenty of other bullshit things in the world that I could point out here, but I have to get back to
homework. Which, at this point is, in and of itself, a big pile of cow poo.
Sherry,
I'll respond this weekend. I am trying to get some stuff done for a class by Friday.
I want to have time to think through a response. This is such an important topic I think.
"So, how are we to discern between our own hearts and the Holy Spirit?"
Well, I think that we distinguish by the word. My heart will say all kinds of things in a given year, that I could easily attribute to God. But if I am in the word regularly, and letting my mind be shaped by God's word I will either have those inclinations of the heart confirmed or exposed as wrong. The Holy Spirit uses the word and applies it to specific areas of my life as I meditate on it. As a Christian my heart will have sinful inclinations, but it should also have an overarching desire to do God's will as revealed in the Bible. So in many cases my heart and the Holy Spirit's guidance through the word will line up well I think.
"Should a Christian never attribute to God extra-biblical wisdom for a decision?"
It depends. If by extra-biblical wisdom you mean Biblically formed wisdom, then I think maybe. The kind of wisdom that come from Biblical principles but then is applied to a situation the Bible doesn't speak directly to. For instance, if a man decides to marry a woman. If he has searched the Scripture to see God's instruction on the kind of person to marry, what a family is about, and how to pursue a bride... well then when he gets married I think it is fine for him to give credit to God's direction in finding his wife. But what usually happens is a guy likes a girl, prays "really hard," gets a mystical sense that this is God's will and then starts saying he knows it is God's will for him to marry the girl. The problem is that he hasn't consulted God's word. Plus, we don't KNOW that it is God's will until he actually marries the girl. James 4:13-16, "Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." God actually forbids presumption of His specific will, which is what so many people do.
One last thing on this, and then I'll stop for now. I do believe that God does guide us through a strong conviction, stemming from His word at times. Kind of like when a person is "called" to missions. There are specific calls to GO to all nations in the Bible. God may impress those deeply on a person's heart as she walks with God. God does lead that way I believe. But still, in those cases I wouldn't say much more than, "I think that God is leading me in this direction." or "I believe God has given me a passion to do this." We know it is inside of His will for us as Christians becuase it is commanded in the Word - but we do not know we will actually fulfill those desires because we are not God and don't control the future.
Since this is already the longest post of my life, I'll stop here for now. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. I'll get to the difference between claiming to know God's will of the future, and trusting God's sovereign guidance in all things in a later post. We have such a good God!
Post a Comment