A thought about following God's will

Katye is reading this great book called Sifted by Wayne Cordeiro, founding pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii.  It's about preparing church planters and church leaders to face the struggles of leading a church, especially in that type of situation.  We heard him speak at the Exponential 2013 conference in Orlando that we attended recently together (first time in YEARS to go to a conference together).  She read me this section the other day (good to have a wife that reads!) and it was really good.

It was about following God's direction in your life when you are presented with options.  The basic gist was that if he is presented with a direction and he doesn't receive a clear "no" in seeking God for the direction, he proceeds ahead, trusting God to shut the door.  The truth, he said, is either it's the right thing, God will shut the door or at worst, you made a mistake and God will make you wiser in the end from it.  He's always going to take care of us.

That's backwards from the way we do things, we don't move ahead without the clear "YES!" sometimes, but that's not always how it is following God...one thing is sure, sometimes the process is meant to be the tool by which He communicates direction, not a pre-arranged contract that you sign before you ever start that spells out everything.  Honestly, He might be just needing you to "move over" a little toward the direction to put you in position for the next thing that He wants you to do.

I plan on reading the book, and from all the things Katye has shared, I recommend it, especially for church leaders.

Let it Burn...or not

Ever look at a campfire after the flame has died down?  You’re sitting there late at night and there’s a little glow emanating off the coals of the fire.  You think the fire’s out… until you chunk a little piece of paper next to one of the embers… then the flame appears again. 

Conflict can be like that also, it can burn like a fire.  If we are smart, we go to the person who hurt us and we work it out…usually, forgiveness comes into play, and it’s extinguished….if we are lucky.  Sometimes, we let it smolder, like an ember, and it waits to flame again later.

When Jesus was asked by one of His disciples about how many times to forgive someone, the disciple suggested 7 times.  Jesus countered with 70 times 7.  We tend to think that someone might have to commit an offense against us 490 times and then we forgive them 490 times…but I think we miss something. 

Forgiveness is more of a process than a one-time event… we don’t just forget what happened.  I think Jesus was saying that you might have to use 490 “forgives” on one occurrence of the wrong.  Anything can remind me of pain…a TV program, a song, a conversation, etc…  To forgive means, every time something reminds me of the hurt, I have to make the choice to forgive the person, every time…maybe 1000 times, just for that one thing.

If forgiveness doesn’t stick, pain can come back at any time, like that glowing ember.  Most times, if the flame isn’t there, i.e. the conflict’s died down, we think everything’s okay because the fire is gone, but not hardly.  Let some little piece of “paper”, a word or a look, get too near the glowing ember and you find out the flame burns strong…just like that. We think the “paper” is the problem, but it’s really not.  If the “paper” just lies there, it never burns on its own.  It needs the ignored ember to light it again.  The hotter the fire/hurt, usually the longer the process of forgiveness… but it’s got to be done because usually the person that takes the most damage is the one nearest the fire, and that’s not the person who messed me over…that’s me or those close to me.