Discerning Direction - Faith

(Dan - FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Over the last few days, we've looked at the concept of finding God's will for our lives.  Needless to say, a topic of this enormity cannot be covered in just a few posts during a week or do.  A few good resources for this topic are Dallas Willard's Hearing God and Henry Blackaby's Experiencing God.  Both have their strengths, but taken together they will offer a primmer of this vast subject.

As we close, I'd like to offer one thought.  While this was addressed earlier on, I believe it is the most appropriate topic on which to close this series of posts.  Faith - do you really trust in God?  When I was a campus minister I recall speaking to a student who was expressing frustration over his fellow students and their laissez-faire attitude toward ministry on-campus.  "If God wants to do something, He'll do it" was their chorus.  I told this student, "There is certainly truth in that statement, but as we look over the history of the Christian church, it is interesting to note that those who have had the greatest impact worked the hardest."  We cannot sit on the sidelines and then wonder why God is not speaking.  The author of Hebrews reminds us that God rewards those who seek Him with all that they have (Hebrews 11).  So yes, we must work at discerning God's will.

But in the end, if we have put forth an effort of which we can be proud, the issue of God's will for our lives comes back to faith in God - that He is who He says He is.  We are reminded in Matthew 7 how reasonable it is to assume that an earthly father would provide for his child.  If that is true, Jesus asks us how much more filled with unconditional love is God our Father?  And if this is true, we can have the faith that He will lead us if we seek after Him.  It may take time and it may all come to pass in a different way than we hoped or expected, but He is good and He will lead us.

At the core of this whole question is our relationship with God.  If we aim to please Him, to love Him, and to be loved by Him, then we can believe the Lord's Prayer that indeed His Kingdom will come and His will will be done on earth.

-tC