God's Will for... (Part 1)

Elisabeth Elliott writes in her book “Discipline, The Glad Surrender”

“The unwillingness of the part of men and women to acknowledge the helpless dependence is a violation of our humanity. Both are a declaration of independence and, whether physical or moral, are essentially atheistic. In both, the answer to the call is no.”

Do we ever think of the consequences of our saying no to God’s call of obedience? I am not talking about our saying no to something big, or excusing us if God hasn’t called us to something extraordinary in our lives.  What I am talking about is when we say no to the small things in our lives, those opportunities we have in life. Most might say that they don’t say no to God, but wait a minute, how many times during the day do we not seek God or comprehend our dependency upon Him. How many times do we seek our will, our reason, and make our desires without His input? We live life as if God is up in the heavens and is only interested in the big things in life, so we leave Him out. Out of our relationship decisions, friendships, work, vocation and other things we want to have control of in our daily life. All the small decisions we leave Him out of can be an indicator of our desire to be independent of Him; an independence that is driven by our sinful desires to be on our own, and not to be dependent upon Him for life’s decisions.

When we think about how we leave God out of the smaller things, we must then understand why He may withhold the big things from us. We may look back at our lives and wonder why certain things haven’t happened to or for us. We will come before God and He may say “I had all this for you, but you settled for something less, something you wanted to control.” And how do we settle for less, by holding on to our lives and keeping our decisions to ourselves. We want this life to be our own, to live as we want, to pick and choose as we please. Leaving God out of the small things eventually adds up to leaving Him out of the big things. We say to ourselves, “I will choose what I do with my life and who I’ll do it with, that is my decision,” then we forget we were bought with a price, our life is no longer my own. (1 Corinthians 6:20)

In every decision there is a consequence, good ones and bad ones. With our decisions we must remember that others will suffer or will be blessed with the consequences. We aren’t free to live a life that won’t affect those around us in our obedient or disobedient to God’s Will. Like a drop of water in a peaceful pond which brings ripples, so does our obedience and disobedience to God’s call.  

Prayer

As I was at church one Sunday I notice on the side was the worship leader waiting expectantly to begin the service. The thing that hit me was, do I pray like that, that is expectantly. Do I pray persistently, and wait with expectation for God to answer my prayer? Do I pray hopefully? In Luke 18:1 before the parable of the persistent widow, it says, “they should always pray and not give up.”  It is one thing to pray expecting when we have a promise from God through His Word; but it is another thing when we pray for something that we don’t have a promise, we just hope for an answer. But do we wait expectantly when it is a prayer or an area of life that we have experienced the most disappointment? It is very difficult when we continually pray but still seem to see disappointment. How is your prayer life? How is your desire to pray for something when you have no answer? How do you persist when it seems as if you are wasting your time? The big question is, how you know when to persist, or to give up and see it as God showing you by His silence. My question to you, how has disappointment shaped your prayer life, for the good or the bad?

Do We Believe God is Good?

Do you believe God is good? All Christians would say that this is true, and that we believe it to be true. The question is, do we live as if it is true? Do we live in ways that demonstrate it in our thoughts, motives and actions? Do we wait on God because we know God has our goodness in mind? Do we pray and wait expecting God to answer by His goodness? Do we spending time listening for the Holy Spirit to direct us because of God’s goodness? There are many other areas in our lives I could go into in regards to see if we truly believe in God’s goodness. But on the other side, we need to ask ourselves some questions. Are we impatient and make our own decisions without looking to God’s leading? Do we rush ahead of God, thinking we know what is best? Do we rush in and out of relationships because of what we want or think we know what is best? If we answer the last set of questions honestly, I am sure some of us do these things on a regular basis; instead of praying, waiting, and looking for His direction instead of following our desires. Are we depending upon ourselves over God? Then we need to rethink what we say we believe about God’s goodness and look deeply into our lives and see if our actions truly live out what we say we believe.