I give my brother Jason a lot of grief, after all he’s my younger brother. But today I watched a clip of his message, on his blog, from this last Sunday at Rivercity Worship Center in Louisville, KY. Jason serves at Rivercity as their Teaching Pastor, and he is a dynamic communicator of The Gospel.
Sunday he spoke about worry and fear, using a passage from Matthew 6. I encourage you to watch this clip, and be encouraged and challenged. It’s more than likely the best use of the next 9:38…I guarantee it!
Someone asked me recently, “What do you do when you can’t hear God?”
Here were my answers:
1- Just keep doing the last thing you know you heard Him say?
He won’t lead you astray, and if you know what He said before, just keep doing that until you hear something different.
2- Keep moving toward Him.
Sometimes when my wife or kids are saying something upstairs and I’m downstairs I can’t hear them. So I have to move closer to them to make it out. I’ll get up and walk upstairs so I can hear what they are trying to say. The same is true with God. While there is no magic formula, keep moving closer to Him. Spend time talking to Him, and listening for Him. Pray, read, serve, worship… Remember, “I will never leave you nor forsake you“…He’s there, you just can’t hear Him.
3- Go to the places He speaks to you most.
This isn’t hard. Some of these will be the similar for everyone, and some will be extremely personal. Read the Bible, pray, worship, go to church, go on a Mission’s trip, practice solitude, journal…it might be that these places cause you to cut out distractions that are limiting your ability to hear, or it may just be comfort.
4- Anticipate.
Unlike us, when God speaks, He has something to say. My Pastor spoke last Christmas about the 400 years of silence “between” the Old and New Testament. When He finally spoke…WOW!
I don’t offer this post as if I always hear God’s voice, never get discouraged, or that you aren’t human if you are experiencing these things. I offer them as encouragement.
I pray that you have an incredible conversation with God today.
I try not to justify my statements a lot, because I don’t feel it’s necessary. But I want to preface this post by saying, I don’t have it all figured out. The things in this post are works in progress, or models that I admire. Some of them are in place for me, while others are goals.
1. Daily devotions or quiet time with the Lord.
– this is the most important system. It must be protected and defended or it will get passed over. 2. Regular, scheduled date nights with my wife.
– Admittedly I struggle with this one. It is one of my new years resolution in ’08 to date my wife more. Business tries to steal this, ministry tries to steal this, our kids try to steal this (though they don’t know it), and laziness try to steal this. 3. X3 Watch internet protection/accountability to guard my integrity.
– I told our students recently on a Wednesday night that I do several things in regards to the internet for my own protection. I have X3 installed and the results emailed to an accountability partner. I don’t get on the computer after Corrie goes to bed.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but captures some of my passions. I want to serve with the Lord with full out abandonment. I want have a successful marriage, and be able to experience a 50th and 75th wedding anniversary. And I want to model a life of integrity for my family and students.
What other personal and spiritual systems are there?
Ben wrote this on his blog yesterday in a post about a new book club entry from Oprah that appears to belittle Christ and any idea of absolute truth…
Last night, I told a longtime friend who is not a believer that I had stepped down as pastor of RCC. She replied, “Well it’s hard to have a church that teaches what you believe. Most people aren’t so narrow.” [dagger in the heart] Jesus is indeed more appealing when he’s not the way, the truth and the life. But any other Jesus is a whole other religion.
I found this article on Yahoo, though they mention it can also be found somewhere on Time Magazine‘s site. It is interesting data about American’s and their religious affiliations. You can read it HERE
I had an interesting conversation with a college student from our church the other day and we started talking about the uncertainty of the future. He loves the Lord with all of his heart. He desires to be used by God in some way to affect others for the cause of Christ. He just doesn’t know how that’s going to play out.
It was almost spooky to hear him say the same things I felt not all that many years ago. I remember wanting my life to matter. I was desperately seeking for God to reveal my future to me so that I could rush off and accomplish it. It was that thinking that got Moses in trouble HERE. Then one night Paul Conn (the president of Lee University) was preaching and said, (paraphrase) “If you were to get in your car tonight and drive from here to Chattanooga (from Cleveland it’s about 30 minutes) you couldn’t see all the way to Chattanooga. You could only see from your car to the end of your headlights. If you could see the entire journey you might get distracted looking ahead and miss something important right here. You might miss a road or your exit. You might run someone off the road because you were looking 30 minutes ahead of you for a good parking spot. That’s the same way the Lord chooses to reveal His will for you sometimes. He won’t give you the whole picture. He’ll show you enough of the road ahead for you to move forward and then you have to wait until He shows you what’s next.”
How simple? How frustrating? Even now I don’t have any clue what the future holds. I don’t know if I will ever Pastor a church. I don’t know if I will write a book. I don’t know if I will be in Youth Ministry until they cart me to the Old Folks home. The road hasn’t been illuminated yet. I know that Corrie and I could not be any happier doing what we are doing in the place that we’re doing it with the people we are doing it with. We don’t have now, nor for the foreseeable future any desire to do anything different. So I take one step and look for God. It takes me back to one of my dad’s favorite verses of scripture.
Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 (NKJV)
I told that young man in my office the same thing my dad told me, “Just be faithful doing what you’re doing where you’re at. When God needs you He’ll know where to find you.”
This is my personal blog. Most of what is written is my opinion, observation, original thought, or things I find interesting somewhere else. While I am employed by Mt. Paran North, the things expressed here are not endorsed or necessarily accepted by Mt. Paran North or it's leadership. So don't go sue the church because you don't agree with something I write. Just post a comment and tell me I'm an idiot. It'll just be better for all of us.
