Discerning God’s Will (part 2)

A couple of posts ago, I told the first of two stories that illustrate some important things I have learned about discerning God’s will. This is the second story. I’ll post again a third time to explain my view of God’s will and how we make decisions as believers.

Story #2: Engineering, Youth Ministry, or the FBI?

Summer began, and I had it all. A recently acquired master’s degree. A full-time consulting job that paid very, very well and a part-time job I enjoyed on the weekends. A church plant that I loved and friends I enjoyed. A spacious rental house and a roommate who was easy to live with. A gym five minutes from the house and Stone Mountain Park ten minutes away. By the end of August, I had . . . well, I still had my friends and my master’s degree, and SMP was still open.

After nearly half the church members moved out of state, the church plant dissolved in June. In July, I lost both jobs in the same week. In August, my landlord called to inform me that he had sold the house. I had a month to vacate. Even my gym closed the next week. I no longer had any financial ties or commitments in Atlanta.

Finding no jobs that fit me in the Atlanta area, I began to accept that I would soon leave a city I loved. Really, Lord? Am I this hardheaded? Some people need a two-by-four upside the head to get the point across. Did I really require this four-by-four?

As quickly as my stability had crumbled, three new job options arose in different states. A pastor from my hometown had offered me a youth pastor position earlier in the year. I called him, and the job was still available. I had led a retreat for the youth group in June, so I already knew the teens. I drove to MS to interview, and they offered me the job.

My boss at the consulting firm gave me a lead on an industrial engineering job in South Carolina. I would have full charge of redesigning this company’s distribution center—any industrial engineer’s dream—and a very nice starting salary. They narrowed it down to a 20-year veteran in the field and me, a young guy with a year-and-a-half experience. They offered me the job.

Then on family vacation, my dad met an FBI agent on the beach. When the agent heard about my situation, he said the FBI was looking for people my age with my background in psychology. When I met him, he gave me his contact info and offered to be a resource if I needed help during the application process.

In three months, I went from having my life neatly ordered to having no long-term stability to choosing from three dizzyingly diverse job options: youth ministry in MS, engineering in SC and potentially heading to Quantico, VA to become an FBI agent.

How does one make such a decision? Of course, I wanted to know God’s will, so I listened for all the ways He normally speaks to me. I spent much time in the Word and in prayer and sought wisdom from trusted friends and family. Yet in all three of those ways of discerning God’s will, I found many benefits and few drawbacks to every job option. The next few weeks, God refused to make His will clear to me. My anxiety about having no job or prospects turned into anxiety about discerning the right job to accept. I genuinely wanted to obey God, so why wouldn’t He show me what to do?

Eventually, a friend asked me what I wanted to do. For the first time, I considered the possibility that God was handing me three good options from which to choose, willing to bless me and use me to grow His kingdom in whichever career direction I chose. Reflecting on this, I realized God was confronting my tendency to use Him as a crutch to avoid responsibility. Submission to God's will is a good thing. But I wanted Him to tell me what to do, so I would have to own neither the responsibility for making a decision nor the results of that decision.

What did I want? Part-time youth ministry in a small town? Financial security as an engineer? The ability to carry a gun, run polygraphs and tell the ladies (in a deep, manly voice), “I’m an FBI agent.”? The choice was mine. I owned the responsibility, made my decision and never looked back. God’s refusal to be my crutch forced me to grow as a man and as an adult.

When you seek God’s will, what motivations do you find in your heart beyond the good and sincere desire to obey Him? (You might discern this by considering what you worry about when faced with a decision.)

Busyness and Distraction vs. Advent

My pastor, Kris, challenged us on December 1^st to spend the next 25 days embracing the season of advent. Until recently, that meant little to me. What is advent, anyway? I now understand that it simply means watchful waiting. We are to spend this season waiting on the Messiah. During Advent, we 1) look back on His first coming, 2) look forward to His return at the end of all things, and 3) pay attention to His nearness, even in the mundane. Watchfulness is the theme.

But what does December look like for us? If you’re like me, you scramble to buy and wrap presents and make it to all the Christmas parties you want to attend in addition to your typically overloaded schedule. Kris posed the convicting question: how many opportunities to pay attention do we miss because we’re busy and distracted? We live in a time deficit.

I accepted Kris’s challenge and planned to add ten minutes to my devotional time each morning and use it to simply sit in God’s presence. To rest and breathe, tuning my ear and heart to the gentle—yet powerful—presence of the Comforter whom Jesus sent us. I also committed to reserving Sunday as a day of worship and rest with no task list, no mandatory activities outside the scope of those two goals. I set out to allow my daily 10 minutes of resting in God’s presence and devotion of Sunday to the same to plant in my heart growing seeds of the Shalom that Adam and Eve must have enjoyed before the Fall. What might it be like to continually walk in God’s presence?

It has been 14 days since I accepted Kris’s challenge to embrace the meaning of Advent this month. I have invested those 10 extra minutes to still myself to wait for my Savior more days than not and successfully reserved each Sunday for rest. Yet I was convicted this morning of how miserably I have failed to carry into my daily activities the peace I experience there. The time I spend resting in Jesus’ presence is to me a breath of fresh air. But then I often switch gears and charge into my day trying to tackle it on my own.

As Kris said: This season pulls us away from watchfulness into busyness and distraction. For the next 10 days, I want to pause every time I feel the stress of my busyness and overcome the distraction by inviting Jesus into the activity of that moment and facing it with the strength of His presence. After all, what comfort did God offer to virtually every prophet who was overwhelmed by his task? Those beautiful words, “I am with you.” (Joshua 1:9 is one of many examples.)

What will the next 10 days look like for you? How might you step back from the frantic hustle and bustle to cultivate watchful awareness of Jesus’ presence and Kingdom here, now?

Discerning God’s Will (part 1)

On a previous post, I was asked a question about how to discern God’s will about questions of life direction, such as career and relationship decisions. It’s an important question we all wrestle with, so I’m going to devote a couple of posts to it. Two stories from my life illustrate some key lessons I’ve learned about discerning God’s will. I’ll tell a relationship story this time and a career story next time.

Story #1: To ask her out or not to ask her out, is that the question?

We often get stuck in the immediate outcome of our decision and miss the bigger picture of what God is doing in our lives for His Kingdom.

Years ago I was more anal and perfectionistic than I am today. (Brian S. if you are reading this, I am not claiming to no longer be a perfectionist, so don’t bother commenting.) I was agonizing over whether or not to ask out a close friend. I spent a lot of time praying about it, and He made it clear that He wanted me to ask her out. He had to tell me three times before I worked up the nerve to do it.

I was surprised when her answer was no. Since God had clearly communicated to me that He wanted me to ask her out, I had assumed that she was supposed to say yes (and was tempted to explain this to her, though luckily I either wasn't arrogant enough or wasn't confident enough to try). I was later able to move through the confusion and see ways that He grew me as a man through that experience. It wasn’t about getting a date with her. God wanted to confront my tendency to overthink everything, which was a lack of faith—an attempt to gain control by being prepared.

So often, we set our sights on something we want and ask God to tell us whether or not He wants us to have it. While we are stuck in our tunnel vision, He thinks big picture. How does He want to sanctify us through this situation that we may more effectively magnify His name and reveal His heart to the people in our lives? I just want to know if I should ask her out and if I’ll get a date, but He wants me to embody more of the character of Christ and become the man I was created to be.

Recognizing that His Kingdom is the big picture frees us from being paralyzed by indecision. Because we are part of a greater story and our sanctification is more important than getting an immediate answer, we can continue to be in action while we patiently wait on the Lord to provide or to guide us toward the things we want. Knowing His will is primarily about being transformed, and we can be in constant motion in that arena. Consider Romans 12:1-2.

This leads to a point in my second story, but I’ll save that for the next post. (Subscribe to my blog if you want to receive an email when I publish the second post.)