I've been experiencing a bit of inner turmoil as of late. The reason? Well, a couple of weekends ago, I found myself at Frontier Ranch, a beautiful Young Life property in Colorado, for a women's retreat weekend called Captivating. Captivating is a popular book co-authored by husband and wife team, John and Stasi Eldredge. You may recognize his name as the author of the New York Times Bestseller, Wild at Heart. Their books (along with their ministry, Ransomed Heart), aim to "reclaim the heart" (my words, not theirs). The basic premise is that our hearts are under attack from Satan, and we must fight hard to win them back so that we may be restored to the joy that God intended for us in Christ Jesus.
I went into the weekend with questions, and came out of the weekend with more questions. There is a lot I could get into here, but the focus of this post is to explain what I've been pondering over lately. I'm sort of an island these days-- bouncing around from location to location without much community (due to the nature of my job)-- so it's nice to use my blog as a forum to discuss this. I'd encourage anyone who has any thoughts on this to post a comment.
My questions stem from the idea of talking to God, or rather, hearing God talk to you. John Eldredge's most recent book is called, Walking With God. Talk to Him. Hear from Him. Really. Really? Eldredge makes the case that if we develop true intimacy with God, we will be able to talk with Him and he shall respond in kind. Eldredge asks questions like, "Should I go camping this weekend?" and awaits the response, "Yes," or "No." That same weekend, I picked up two books from the Young Life Camp store-- one called, Closer than Your Skin, by Susan D. Hill, and the other by John Piper, called, When I Don't Desire God: How to Fight for Joy. I suspect I should have started with the latter, but I ended up reading the former instead. Hill makes the same arguments-- she prays to God and then waits in silence for His answer. So, is it really that simple? Do you just ask God questions, and he'll respond back? This is the crux of what has been on my mind as of late. I became a Christian at the age of six, and in the twenty-three years that I have been a follower of Christ, I can say that only one time (with any reasonable certainty in myself) that I have heard what I tend to describe as the voice of God. It was not audible, only within my head, and it produced a feeling within me such as if I had been pierced with a ray of light. What I (allegedly) heard from God was not some new revelation, but Holy Scripture, "My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9) It was as Hebrews 4:12 states
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow, as it judges the thoughts and purposes of the heart.
Aside from that one time, I can only think of one other time that I believed that I was hearing directly from God, and in that time, it also came in the form of scripture. I certainly do not hear from God day to day, or at least not in the form that Eldredge and Hill recommend. I must say that I was, and am, very skeptical of this approach to relating to God. For one thing, how do we know that the voice we're hearing in our heads is from God, and not just ourselves, or worse, from Satan? At one point during the weekend, Eldredge told how when someone asks him to pray for them, he first checks with God to see whether God wants Eldredge to pray for that person. He told us that sometimes God says No, he doesn't want Eldredge to pray for that person. Again, Really? Is that really from God? Is it theologically sound to say that there are times when God does not desire us to pray for certain people?
Things get a little more sketchy for me. In Walking with God, John tells the story of the time he asks God, "Should I ride my horse?" but forgets to ask God, "Where?" As a result, he falls and is injured. Am I to draw from this scenario that all bad things that happen to us are a result of not properly hearing God's voice, or not following it when I do?
Still, I would be lying if I said that this conversational approach to God wasn't appealing to me. What if it were that simple?
BUT, after mulling it over a bit, and also being frustrated by people who say they are trying to "find God's Will" or who use circumstances (like encountering a little difficulty in the pursuit of something) to act as indicators of whether they're following God's Will, I'm sticking to my original conclusion that God does not relate to us in that way (which isn't to say that He can't, because He can do anything He wills, but it is to say that normatively, He does not).
To aid me in my quest for answers, I referred to a book that was given to me as a gift from my church when I graduated college in 2002. Finding the Will of God by Bruce K. Waltke examines the question of whether the concept of "finding God's will" is a biblical idea and whether the practices that many Christians use (such as following hunches, looking for signs, pointing to random Bible verses, trusting the first thought that pops into our heads after prayer, etc.) are sanctioned in scripture. He writes, "When we talk of "finding God's will" we generally want divine guidance on specific choices, but it should be noted that this specific term is never used after the Holy Spirit came upon the church at Pentecost. The apostles, upon whom the church is founded, did not teach that we are to seek God's will in this way (pg 10-11)." He continues, "The New Testament gives no explicit command to "find God's will," nor can you find any particular instructions on how to go about finding God's will (pg 12). He also points out that "there are no examples of God stepping miraculously into the life of anyone in the New Testament in response to the seeking of His will. When the Lord does choose to do something miraculous, like sending a vision to Peter or transporting Philip to another town, it is not in response to a request for God to reveal His will." In fact, "both of these men believed they were already doing God's will, and the Lord stepped in to change their situations. (pg 160-161)."
He says that our attempts to "discover" God's will using the aforementioned strategies are actually a form of divination, which is the way pagans sought to make decisions, rather than the way Christians should go about it. "If we are going to find His will on one specific choice, we will have to penetrate the divine mind to get His decision... we are attempting to discover hidden knowledge by supernatural activity... '(f)inding' in this sense is really a form of divination. (pg 11). And, lest you are unaware of what God says about divination, you can turn to Deuteronomy 18:10 (The Lord says, "Let no one be found among you... who practices divination").
He adds, "Simply because God has a plan does not mean that He necessarily has any intention of sharing it with you; as a matter of fact the message of Job is in part that the Lord in His sovereignty may allow terrible things to happen to you, and you may never know why... Instructively, the outcomes of faith for the first three heroes of faith celebrated in Hebrews vary considerably. Able believed God, and he died; Enoch believed God, and he did not die; Noah believed God, and everybody else died! The only thing they had in common is that they believed God and it pleased Him (pg 15)."
So, what's a girl to do in order to determine God's will for her life? Namely, we turn to scripture where God's will has already been revealed to us. 1 Thessalonians 5:15-18 says "See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another, and for all men. Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."
We (in this order) read God's word (the Bible), develop a heart for God by spending time with God each day in prayer and in His word, seek wise counsel in the form of other men and women of mature faith, look for God's providence-- or the working of cirsumstances in our lives, use our own good judgement, and as a final outlet, we may find that God has divinely intervened, although we do not seek this out, nor wait for it to occour in order for us to act. Waltke develops several chapters around these themes, and I would direct you to them, and his book as a whole, to further understand how these activities work to reveal God's will in your life.
I also like this book that I just found on Amazon. It is called Just Do Something: A Liberating Approach to Finding God's Will or How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc. The book is due for release on April 1, 2009 and shall make a welcome addition to my library. The product review reads
Hyper-spiritual approaches to finding God's will don't work. It's time to try something new: Give up.
Pastor and author Kevin DeYoung counsels Christians to settle down, make choices, and do the hard work of seeing those choices through. Too often, he writes, God's people tinker around with churches, jobs, and relationships, worrying that they haven't found God's perfect will for their lives. Or— even worse— they do absolutely nothing, stuck in a frustrated state of paralyzed indecision, waiting . . . waiting . . . waiting for clear, direct, unmistakable direction.
But God doesn't need to tell us what to do at each fork in the road. He's already revealed his plan for our lives: to love him with our whole hearts, to obey His Word, and after that, to do what we like.
No need for hocus-pocus. No reason to be directionally challenged. Just do something.
Thanks for taking the time to read through this long post. I know this sort of thing is a bit of a departure from what I normally do, and I apologize if it turns some people off. However, these are things that I have been thinking about lately, and it is near and dear to my heart. I must say this has been helpful for me as an exercise in clarifying what I'm thinking.
I am so excited for the midnight release of Twilight, the film version of the popular vampire novels by Stephanie Meyer, on DVD.
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