Confusing Times

We are having a fellowship tonight for the kids from a retreat we had last year. We are also planning another retreat and solidifying Yearn4god. All of this is going on without God speaking to me much at all. That leaves the disturbing confusion of “ Am I doing all this under my own steam and without the blessing of God” or “ Is God in the shadows waiting to make His presence felt at the appropriate time”

A friend of mine said that he used to “ spray like a machine gun” getting involved in church programs and doing ministry work whenever he could. But then, as he got older he became more like a sniper. Now he waits on God and God directs him to give someone a word of encouragement or offer to pray for a person.

This made a lot of sense to me and I took a large step back from the amount of ministry work I was doing. I soon found that my thoughts were about going on holiday and renovating my house and I was thoroughly enjoying spending my spare time with my family.

Suddenly, people were talking of another retreat and we began to organize a fellowship and I was kind of swept along with the plans. One part of me was feeling that it would feel good to get back and do some ministry and another part of me was thinking that it felt like something I was ‘just doing’.

I still don’t have a conclusion for these thoughts. I fully expect that God will turn up and bless people at the fellowship and the retreat. I believe that God arms you if you go into battle. If you spend all your time sitting around waiting for God to give you a sign before you will leave the house, you will do a lot of sitting. On the other hand, a lot of people spend their lives doing well intentioned but ineffectual things in God’s name.

The verse where ‘not all who say Lord’ Lord will enter into heaven’ comes to mind. The bible tells us that people will cast out demons and work miracles in the name of Jesus and yet he will tell them he ‘never knew them’.

Jesus is the ultimate example. He did not do anything that was not the will of the Father.

I feel some trepidation as I write this because I know I haven’t been spending enough time on my relationship with God and so I am unsure about His will. For me, my closest connections with God have always been when I have stood in front of a crowd or gone out on a limb doing a ministry of some kind and God’s anointing has flowed through me.

I don’t want to spend mu whole life waiting for a sign from God and missing opportunities to serve Him but I don’t want to run around doing things I think are for God just to find out that I never did His will. The fellowship tonight and the retreat will be a significant time for me to sort out the protocol for my walk with God.

May I manage to do His will and bring Him glory, Amen

Highlights

If you read the bible you will read  amazing stories about the lives of people such as Paul, Moses, Joshua, Jacob and so on. The interesting thing is that these ‘amazing’ stories are just highlights. In one sentence in the bible you can jump 10 or even 40 years of someone’s life.

The thing you don’t get is the drudgery of day to day life. Moses spent 40 years wandering the desert and yet that time is covered in just a few pages of the bible. You don’t here about him spending a year doubting if he was really doing God’s work or fighting with his wife or stressing about disciplining his children.

The point is this : Life is like a roller coaster, sometimes your going up, sometimes your coming down and at times you are crusing along a plateau. Learning to be consistent in your walk with God is extremely important. Many people get ‘on fire’ for God but when the fire dies down they chase it like a drug. Then, when they fail to reach the peaks previous times often crash and burn.

Seek God, be true and faithful to the Holy Spirit that lives in you and God will call on you to do His work when He needs to. Don’t be discouraged by the quiet times, that is when God will refine you.

GBU, Gef