Tuesday, May 26, 2009

May 26, 2009: On Discerning The Will Of God (Part 2)

Just to cover a few things left unsaid in last week's essay. And some personal testimony.

I believe the strong, sincere desire on the part of many Christians to "discern the will of God" actually tends to reflect a bit of a mismatch between something we want from God and something he wants from us. We are desperate to be guided in matters that are unclear, while he desires that we simply obey in matters that are already abundantly clear.

Christians are commanded to trust that God will direct our paths – not fear that he won't. I have known cases of Christians obsessing so badly about knowing God's will that it developed into a kind of neurosis for them. They feared missing the subtlest of clues, worried about not having said the right prayers or fasted long enough. Maybe they sinned, and they figured that just ruined everything, irreparably, and made it impossible to get back on track. Sometimes they even got mad at God (how dumb is that?) when they tried everything they could think of to discover his will and things still turned out badly.

They need to relax, and learn wisdom from the prophet Jonah. I am indebted to Erwin Lutzer for pointing out this lesson from Jonah's story: if God will go to such extreme measures to re-direct a man who knows his will but chooses to disobey, how much more will he direct the person who longs to do his will, but is momentarily confused as to what it is?

Part of our problem I think is that we tend to assume we know what will be the end result of our having discovered and obeyed God's will for our life. If we get it exactly right, then of course we'll have inner peace, enjoy happy and exemplary marriages, serve God in productive ministries, etc. But how do we really know that any of that is God's will for us?

Jesus, Peter and Paul all lacked peace at times while serving faithfully in the center of God's will: see Luke 22:44; John 21:18; 2 Corinthians 11:28-29; 1 Thessalonians 3:5.

It was God's will for the prophet Hosea to have a perfectly rotten marriage - the poor man was wed to a whore who cheated on him! (I think of a woman who complained about God "tricking" her into a bad marriage when she had done everything right - prayer, fasting, seeking good counsel, everything! - and her husband turned out to be a foul wretch of deep darkness. But how could she know that it was not precisely God's will for her to marry such a beast?)

I've never known a minister or missionary who did not pray for a thriving ministry. "So, if I'm stuck in a ministerial dead end, is that a sign that I have misread God's will?" No, not necessarily. It was God's will that Noah, Isaiah and John the Baptist – biblical titans all - wind up preaching to audiences of seven, zero, and one respectively. See 1 Peter 3:20; Isaiah 6:11-12; Mark 6:20.

I have had opportunity to reflect at great length on the topic of God's will concerning whom we should marry. My past marital woes are no secret, but to this day I neither doubt the leading of God in that area, nor regret having taken the path down which he led me. It is true that, almost certainly, had I married someone else, I would have been a much happier man all these years - but does that mean I would have been a better man? No. What could a person like me have learned from uninterrupted bliss, and how could that have shaped my character for the purposes to which God called me? It was by the severe mercy of God that I was kept from experiencing the kind of happiness that every man craves. So be it. Not my will but his be done. I praise him for his good leading.

And he will continue to lead, and do so with such deft care and a loving touch that I really don't need to worry or lose sleep over it. The analogy that suggests itself to me is that of going on one of those water rides in an amusement park. The raft will careen and bounce all over, and jerk me from side to side, and it might even send me directly under that waterfall up ahead. But the course is safe, and pre-selected, and I can't go over the side if I just obey the posted rules. All I really have to worry about is keeping my arms in the vehicle at all times, remaining seated, with my safety belt fastened and my loose items secured. That kind of thing.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

May 19, 2009: On Discerning The Will Of God

I was recently asked if I had any old Pastor's Pages on discerning God's will. I didn't, so here's one.

"Discerning God's will" is a favorite topic of some preachers (Charles Stanley in particular, I've noticed), but one that I ignore. The reason is because I think we already know the will of God in areas where it matters. Regarding doctrine, we know it is God's will that we believe the gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. Regarding behavior, we know it is his will that we be kind, just, fair, honest, compassionate, sober, diligent, faithful, loving, generous and pure, and that we avoid malice, lust, drunkenness, greed, slander, impurity, sloth, rebellion, dishonesty, theft and negligence. We could expound a bit more on the meaning of the gospel of Christ, and we could add a few things to the lists of virtues and vices - but we've already got the general idea. Believe what is true and do what is right. This is God's will for you.

But when Christian evangelicals talk about discerning the will of God (or, perhaps, "hearing his voice" or "following the Holy Spirit's leading"), they are usually not referring to things that have a clear moral or doctrinal component. They are usually thinking of choices between amoral alternatives. [Usage note: "amoral" does not mean
"bad", it just means having nothing to do with morality.] These would involve questions like, "Should I take that job in Spokane or the one in Raleigh?" "Should I attend Illinois State or Northern Illinois?" "Should I marry Alice or Barbara?" "Boxers or briefs?"

I would not say that God is aloof, uninvolved in such decisions. He guides. But he does not play a shell game with us, hiding his true will behind a fast-moving blur of opaque shields that demand our utmost concentration in order to guess which one holds the peanut. I have seen long lists of "clues" for discerning God's will, and they turn me off when they wander into Da Vinci Code complexity. The Bible tends to present the will of God as something that may be hard to do but never hard to know. In fact, there are repeated reminders of its simplicity against those who are making it too complicated.

Three examples below:

Deuteronomy 30:11-14:
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, "Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, "Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?" No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.

Micah 6:8:
He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Luke 10:25-28:
On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" "What is written in the Law?" he replied. "How do you read it?" He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" "You have answered correctly," Jesus replied. "Do this and you will live."

A few months ago I referred to a minister who obsessed over the will of God concerning a job opportunity, but who somehow missed the resounding clarity of the 7th commandment, "You shall not commit adultery." Talk about straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel! Maybe one of the reasons I don't preach those "How to discover God's will for your life" sermons is because I perceive that they focus on all the wrong things, encouraging believers to guess at the unfathomable instead of just doing the good thing (or avoiding the bad thing) that is right in front of them.

Augustine famously said, "Love God, and do as you please," and he was exactly right. If you love God - which necessarily means obeying his commandments - you can go to Spokane or Raleigh, attend Northern or State, marry Alice or Barbara. Again, granting that there is no moral difference between the two. If, for example, Alice is a stunningly attractive, razor-tongued tart while Barbara is a gentle and sincere servant of God, then the moral component makes it obvious whom you should marry. You should marry Alice because you're not good enough for Barbara. For the sake of Barbara's happiness, you must leave her to a better man than yourself!

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

May 5, 2009: Cover Up

Summer approaches, when we all wear less clothing, so I thought this a good time to remind you (young people in particular) to be sure to wear enough clothing.

I'll set an example at church, as I do every summer. Though I shed my suit jacket around Memorial Day and don't put it on till September, I never go as far as to appear in the pulpit wearing shorts and a T shirt. That is because it would not be right of me to distract you with my finely sculpted calf muscles. And though I have 6-pack abs, I dutifully keep them covered at all times with a thick layer of subcutaneous fat. It is just one of those things that mature people do.

In the wake of the recent brouhaha about Miss California in the Miss USA pageant, I asked a couple friends if they would mind if their daughters participated in such a contest. One said "I'm not sure" and the other said "No way!" I said, "I'm just glad I don't have daughters." (It's the same thing I say at high school basketball half-time shows where the dancing squads not only wear inappropriate tights but gyrate suggestively in them, making me wonder why none of these girls have parents who say to them, "Young lady, you are not going out of this house dressed like that!")

Way back in 1996 I was teaching a Sunday School class to a group of about 20 senior citizens, and happened to ask if any of them had a problem with a Christian woman parading around onstage in a bikini so that spectators could ogle and grade her body in the swimsuit competition of a Miss America contest. None of them objected to that - they all thought I was prudish. Then, afterward, the oldest person in the class, a dear wizened widow who had never said a word, came up to me and quietly whispered, "I agree with you." So there it was, just me and a 93-year-old saint holding down the lonely fort of modesty in the face of a permissive onslaught within the church!

Another widow recently wrote to me saying, "The Bible says that women make themselves beautiful with a gentle and quiet spirit [1 Peter 3:4]. Is this something that is attractive to all men do you think?" I wrote back that it was certainly attractive to me! A gentle and quiet spirit is downright sexy - and sexy in the right way. An aggressive, public flaunting of flesh in tight or skimpy clothing only attracts the wrong kind of man - or attracts only the reptilian part of the brain of a good man.

Let the reptile have his rightful place in the marriage bed. Elsewhere, in public settings - especially church! - let your behavior be governed by modesty in spirit, speech, demeanor and dress.