The Dilemma of Gods Will

Date: Jun 5, 2014 8:29 PM

This subject is much bigger than I am addressing and I know that it has many more sides or perspectives through which it is addressed. For this post I only want to consider that place where most of us at one time or another have found ourselves saying something like this: God, this didnt turn out as I expect. It is a dead end and we are having to go back to the start. Did we miss your will or what? Often at this point we are discouraged because we thought that what we were doing was "right." IT was what we were supposed to do. So we find ourselves saying,  "Now what, God?" I think that many of us or most likely most of us know this place?  Did we "miss God"?   I'd like to address this question of the dilemna of God's will first from the perspective of "right" and what we "should" do. As I look into the nature of my Father and the person of Jesus Christ, I don't see any sense that we are to be doing what we "think is right."  Just as much, we aren't to be addressing the question of what "I should do."  Yet this is the place where most of us Christians have lived and it might just as simply be put as living out of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord Himself, taught the disciples to pray..THY will on earth as it is in heaven.     Now how would we know HIS WILL...if we are only seeking to do what is right and what we think we "should do?"   The focus of such thinking is clearly  my thinking of right and wrong, rather than seeking what the Lord Jesus tells us in John that is the way we are to function in Him.  He said, I only do what I see my Father doing, I only say what I hear the Spirit speaking."   So....how does that differ from me doing what I think is right?    It is diametically opposed or the opposite of His way of thinking and doing. and if we were to happen to do "what He wanted me to do", it would still be done in my strength and in my power out of my understanding.  We are accustomed to pray according to what we think is right and what is wrong....we ask for Him to do things according to what we think is right. And this is "carnal" thinking. And this kind of thinking sooner or later ends up in a pit when things don't happen the way we think they "ought to" when we "do things right." So what then is God calling us to?  He is calling us to believe that He is in us and we are in Him.....that wherever we go, whether we got it all figured out or not, that we put our faith in WHO HE IS and WHO HE IS IN US and WHO WE ARE IN HIM.   As we wait upon Him and wait in Him, we learn to trust Him even if we end up in a dead end.   The test is not whether we do it right or if we miss it all together. The test is...WILL I PUT MY TRUST IN WHO HE IS!!! AND WHO I AM IN HIM?  Will I be found in faith...in HIs faith? Not even "my faith." We see as through a window darkly....we aren't going to always see clearly the path that is ahead, or the way He is leading us, but we can trust that HE is leading, that He is in charge of our lives, no matter what I end up doing. Am I His, is He is charge, whether I am weak or a failure, is He still Lrod, still in Charge or is his faithfulness dependent upon my faithfulness?   He is still faithful because that is His character even when I miss it, mess it, blow it greatly!!  God is looking down to see if there is faith in the earth....not if there is "right behavior"  rather he is looking for "righteous men and women"...men in "right relationship to HIm"  who trust Him to be faithful no matter what condition I may find myself in.   This does not justify "sin"...but when I sin or miss the mark, it means the power of that sin is broken and God is still in me and God is still with me in Christ Jesus!! I watched a dear friend go down one dead end pathway after another, seemingly following the leading of the Lord each step of the way.  i learned as I watched her that it wasn't where she was going that was the key, it was whether or not she was trusting the Lord regardless of the outcome of her walk.  When she hit one dead end next to another, would she believe that God had abandoned her, that she had "missed God" or would she believe that HE was in her and with her whether she missed or misunderstood?  In this case I watched this dear sister go down one dead end path after another, and it was as if He walked her down each of those paths until she finally comprehended the goodness and faithfulness of God was with her and in her, and the answer to all her needs ultimately was not in any of those dead end pathways, but when she came to the end, she knew that He alone was her salvation, healing, restoration.  It was about learning to trust the Lord, even if it was down a dead end pathway!  Did she miss God's plan?  He was working HIs plan out in her. Recently I was with a dear sister who was carrying such guilt and shame for the financial and vocational situation she found herself, worrying that she'd missed God's plan, or done it wrong.  My heart went out to her because I knew God never left her, God was still in her and with her and had gone with her everywhere she had gone and was calling her to trust Him and rely on HIm and put guilt and shame to the cross where all short coming is laid. God is God in our failure as much as in our success. In fact we are less likely to trust God in our success than in our failure!  How often we may say, Thank you Lord for success, you "helped me" get here!!     God isn't interested in helping us do what we want to do!   Yep, that is right. We ask God's help to do all sorts of things that have nothing to do with His plan or his purpose...and since He is Father, He is Love, and He is good....he walks with us and in us...even as we go about our own business of doing what we think is right.   But it won't fill up the image of Christ in us!! He is interested in us trusting Him to be who He is in us and who we are in....that what IS in the heavenly realm in Him might be manifest in the earth, in the earth of my being....that Christ might be manifest upon the earth...in you and I as we walk through life. We need much encouragement as we learn His ways...and we are called to encourage those who are discouraged and who fear they missed God's plan.   He is calling us to the Rest that the Israelites didn't enter into....and it is in that Rest, which is Jesus Himself, that we will gain the confidence that "if we ask according to HIS WILL, we have whatever we ask."  His Word is spoken from the throne and as we speak forth and pray according the Word that is spoken from the throne, of course the Father will not only hear us but he will have already gone ahead and been accomplishing before we ask all that He has put in our hearts and minds.    Teach us Lord, your ways...to walk in You as You walk in and through us upon the earth!! Meri