When does God speak to us?

I had a skype call yesterday from a friend who lives overseas, and who is trying to determine God's leading for he and his wife.  I'm talking about an important life-decision, and one that certainly requires (I would hope) some sense of God's heart and mind on the matter, as I believe they're trying to discover right now.

  My friend mentioned a book he's reading by Kevin DeYoung called, "Just Do Something: A liberating approach to finding God's will - or - How to Make a Decision Without Dreams, Visions, Fleeces, Open Doors, Random Bible Verses, Casting Lots, Liver Shivers, Writing in the Sky, etc."  Now, to be fair I've never read this book (although I'm inclined to now).  However, as my friend told me the title, I made the comment that I would say that our experience as a family is the polar opposite of the author's perspective.  Having now read some of the reviews on the book I can say with a fair amount of confidence that the author is: 1 - American.   2 - Probably in his late 30's or early 40's.  3 - Likely from a Reformed perspective theologically  4 - is a "Cessationist" when it comes to hearing God's voice.


The concept of just "doing something" as opposed to waiting for or expecting God to give clear guidance (or even believing that God has a preference one way or the other) is a very Western - and particularly American - way of looking at life.  Here in America we are used to getting whatever we want instantly : fast food, fast travel, fast access to data.  I'm old enough to remember when we didn't have the internet or email, and while I'm a big fan of technology in general I've seen the dangers that "instant communication" can present.  When I was dating my wife long-distance, our letters would take weeks to travel between Senegal and South Africa.  When a letter would finally arrive, we could never be sure what questions the other was responding to because we'd written so many letters in between!  My point is simply that life and decision-making just took a lot longer because we didn't have access to "Instant" anything.  Waiting was a way of life - especially in Africa.  But there was a positive side to a slower lifestyle: we were often forced to wait for information before making important decisions. . . and often in the waiting we heard God's voice.  I believe that in the hectic, instant lifestyle that so many lead today we have lost the art of waiting upon the Lord.  In fact, we don't even believe that God WILL speak to us, or that He has any particular opinion one way or the other.  I want to quote one of the reviews on DeYoung's book, and then make a few comments afterwards.

“My goal,” he says, “is not as much to tell you how to hear God’s voice in making decisions as it is to hear God telling you to get off the long road to nowhere and finally make a decision, get a job, and perhaps, get married.” He fears that many Christians, because of their unbliblical understanding of knowing and doing the will of God, are wasting their lives doing nothing when they should just be doing, well, something! “I’d like us to consider that maybe we have difficulty discovering Gods wonderful plan for our lives because, if the truth be told, He doesn’t really intend to tell us what it is. And maybe we’re wrong to expect Him to. . . , 

Here’s the real heart of the matter, according to DeYoung. “Does God have a secret will of direction that He expects us to figure out before we do anything? And the answer is no.” Though we are free to ask for his direction and though we ought to be devoted to prayer in all matters, God does not burden us with seeking his will of direction ahead of our decisions. “God does have a specific plan for our lives, but it is not one that He expects us to figure out before we make a decision.” “Trusting in God’s will of decree is good. Following his will of desire is obedient. Waiting for God’s will of direction is a mess.”..., 

Here, then, is how we are to live within God’s will: “So go marry someone, provided you’re equally yoked and you actually like being with each other. Go get a job, provided it’s not wicked. Go live somewhere in something with somebody or nobody. But put aside the passivity and the quest for complete fulfillment and the perfectionism and the preoccupation with the future, and for God’s sake start making some decisions in your life. Don’t wait for the liver-shiver. If you are seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, you will be in God’s will, so just go out and do something.” 

If this is truly DeYoung's perspective,  he is heading down a road - and bringing others with him - that ends in up believing that God doesn't actually care one way or the other about anything in our lives.  I find this outlook to be not only humanistic, but completely unbiblical as well.  THROUGHOUT the Scriptures God led His people through the very supernatural means that DeYoung is discounting: dreams, visions, promptings, prophetic words, divine circumstances, etc.  Waiting for and Resting in God has now become "passivity".  The author's own words are contradictory when he says, "Though we are free to ask for his direction and though we ought to be devoted to prayer in all matters, God does not burden us with seeking his will of direction ahead of our decisions."  Why, then, should I bother asking for direction or praying at all?  Clearly God isn't going to answer, so you might as well just get on with life the best that you can.  He gives lip service to seeking God, but in the next breath basically says that it's a waste of time.  This is only a short step away from believing that God doesn't actually intervene in the affairs of men at all - which is called Agnosticism. The problem today is not that God no longer speaks to us supernaturally, but that we no longer have the patience or the time to hear His voice.

Not only do I believe Scripturally that God expects us to seek His guidance, but our own experience has proven literally HUNDREDS of times that God is intimately involved in our lives, and that He wants us to seek Him and wait upon Him for direction.  I'm not talking about asking God what kind of cereal to eat in the morning, or whether I should wear a green or red shirt today.  Common sense alone says that this would be ridiculous.  BUT, I do believe that many of our daily decisions absolutely require that we remain "in tune" with God's Spirit and His leading.  But this requires two things that DeYoung and many others would undoubtedly reject:  A level of intimacy with God that allows me to hear His voice, and the willingness to wait until He has spoken.  If from the outset I have a perspective that God no longer speaks supernaturally outside (or even INSIDE ) the Scriptures, then I am destined to find my own way as best I can.  Just consider the implications of this attitude:  the God who created and sustains the entire Universe, who knows all of time and eternity, who can see both the past and the future, and who knows me more intimately than I can even imagine - this same God is asking me to figure out all of life's important decisions by using the teeny, tiny amount of intelligence that I alone possess.  Wow.  No wonder so many of us end up in such a mess!  I counsel people virtually every day who have used the "wonders" of their own intelligence to get themselves into the biggest messes you could ever imagine.  No, I would rather take the time to learn to recognize the voice of God's Spirit and follow His lead.  And know this:  God's leading is very often counter-intuitive, or even illogical in nature. If I am looking for the solution that makes "sense", I will in all likelihood not follow God's leading anyway.

As I said before, hearing God's voice has become a truly lost art.  When I speak about waiting upon God and resting in His sovereignty, I am met more often than not by blank stares.  We have given in to the lie that God does not speak "that way" anymore, and therefore we have to figure it out for ourselves.  God is no longer a supernatural being who communicates with His children.  He has become a distant, uncommunicative entity who expects us to find our own way as best we can.

So go for it, and let me know how that works out for you.

Musings on wildfires, church growth & whatever.

Fire near Meyer Ranch - 3 miles from our home

Interesting fact about living in the mountains:  anytime you're out and about, or eating in a restaurant, or grocery shopping and you hear a siren - everyone turns to look.  I suppose this is normal in any context, but what everyone is turning to see is if the siren is coming from an ambulance or police car (in which case they go back about their business), or if it is a firetruck.  If the latter, the first thing you want to know is where the fire is, because everyone thinks about the risk of wildfires all the time - particularly between April and the first snow in the Fall.  We've had a much lower than normal level of snowfall here in Conifer this past winter, which does not bode well for the fire season.  We've already had six wildfires in Confer/Evergreen in the past two weeks, and most people believe this summer could be extremely dangerous due to the dry conditions that prevail.  Just the end of last week there were three fires that were ignited along Hwy 285 in the span of a few minutes, and it now appears that a truck dragging a catalytic converter started all three.  One of those fires (see photos to right) burned over 40 acres and threatened some nearby homes.  The craziest part is that it had snowed about an inch just that morning, and yet a few sparks were still enough to light three fires.

I've been cutting down trees around our house to mitigate the fire risk, plus it will give me some firewood for next winter.  Trees on the ground are not the problem in a wildfire; it's the standing trees that are a cause for concern because a big fire jumps across the tree crowns and doesn't even come down to the ground.

We set a new attendance record yesterday at our three Easter services - 618 people!  In a community of only 9,000 that's approaching 10% of the total population.  What's even more amazing is that we've only been in existence up here on the mountain for 2 years.  God is clearly doing something in this mountain community and He is drawing people to Himself in a dramatic way.  We've also just purchased 46 acres of land smack dab in the middle of Conifer, and half of the Journey staff have moved into the big "Bonanza" house that's already on the property.   To allow us to buy the land God raised over $100,000 in only two weeks - an incredible accomplishment by anyone's standards.  Yesterday as Michael and I stood at the back of the auditorium watching the third service fill up to capacity, he turned and said to me, "When we first moved up here two years ago someone told me that we'd never get a church off the ground in the mountains.  I guess they were wrong!"

This next Wednesday I'll be teaching from 1 Corinthians 5, which deals with the question of church discipline and how to handle immorality in the body.  This is a tricky passage to deal with, as Paul talks about handing someone over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh - not a common theme for sermons these days!

There's a bear outside!

A few minutes ago our quiet household suddenly jumped into hyper-drive.  Daphne and two of the girls were downstairs watching TV when all at once I hear Dixie start to bark frantically, and Daphne shouted "There's a bear!".  Apparently a young bear took a keen interest in the Dick Van Dyke show and came to have a look through the sliding door.  By the time the rest of us ran downstairs, the bear was gone.  We've heard that the bears are around - I just didn't expect them to show up at 8:30 in the evening! 

Daphne and I had lunch with some friends from church a couple of days ago, and they were telling us that a bear came up on their deck and tried to get in the house while the wife was sitting right there in the living room with the light on.  He ripped a hole in their screen door, then came around to the windows on the other side and pushed his nose up against the window - leaving two perfect bear "nose marks" that are still there.  The scary thing is that he would have come right on into the house if the sliding door had been open.  He was most likely attracted by the smell of the beef stroganoff they'd had for dinner that evening.  They only live about 2 miles from our house, so it's likely we're seeing the same bears.  So much for leaving our doors open at night in the summertime to enjoy the breeze! 

This isn't the same bear, but it's one that I saw two summers
ago when I was fishing with my friend Mike McCoy in Cheesman Canyon.  I believe the coloring of this bear is called
a Cinnamon Black Bear.

The God Who Sees

"We can't accept this money". 

Daphne and I have been counseling a young couple, and we felt the time had come for them to go out on a date and enjoy themselves without discussing any of their "issues".  There was only one problem: they are pretty short on cash, and the wife has just made a courageous, faith decision to quit her job in order to spend more time with their two year old son Jake.  The husband was doing his best to refuse the cash that I'd slid across the table, but I told him that if he didn't take it I would just leave it on the table.  "I know you WILL just leave it, but I don't want to accept it.  You guys don't make enough money to help us... we should be helping YOU."  "Why don't you let us worry about our money" I replied.  "Besides, while I was sitting here, God told me that I should give you this money, so if you refuse it you're being disobedient to God",  I said with a smile.  I wasn't lying, because I did believe the Lord prompted me to give them the money -- but I admit it is a little unfair to pull out the "God" card at times like these. 

Why is it that we have so much trouble receiving grace from others?  Most of us are great gift-givers, but we're terrible gift-receivers.  Let's be honest, it boils down to plain, old Pride.  The Lord dealt with me in this area several years ago when I tried to refuse a gift of money from a dear friend.  He basically told me the same thing I told this young couple, that he believed he was responding to a prompting from the Spirit of God, and my refusal to receive the gift was tantamount to rejecting God's provision for my needs.  We pray to God and ask Him to provide for us, then almost in the same breath we turn around and reject the very provision we've asked for.  Our level of personal pride can be dumfounding at times, and it is a huge hindrance to our ability to hear God's voice in our lives.  Ever since my friend challenged my own unwillingness to receive I made the decision never to refuse a gift - no matter how inappropriate that gift may seem to me.  If we don't have a particular need at that moment then my conclusion is that God's plan is for us to "pay it forward" to someone else in need.  One thing's for sure: a gift will never go to waste.

We serve Jehovah Jireh - "The God Who Sees".  He sees our needs.  He sees our longings.  He knows what we need before we ask Him.   Then why do we find it so hard to let go and truly REST in His perfect love for us?  GOD is our provider - not us.  He possesses infinite resources, and He can choose to use any of them to provide for our needs.  Case in point:  the young couple I mentioned above.  They did go out on a date per our instructions, and they chose a very swanky steak restaurant, well known for their excellent food and service.  They had a $40 gift card for this restaurant that the wife had received from her boss, as well as the cash from us.  In spite of this relative "abundance", when she looked at the prices on the menu she started calculating in her head, and she decided (on her own) that they couldn't afford the meal.  Her husband saw that she wasn't going to order what she really wanted to have, but instead was looking for the cheapest item on the menu.  He told her that the meal was a gift, and they could afford to spend a little of their own money and "splurge" a bit for once.  In spite of his insistence, she just couldn't bring herself to let go of her mental calculations and eventually ordered a small steak, shared a starter and only ordered water to drink. 

When it came time to pay the bill they gave the waitress the gift card, another coupon they had and our cash - and added another $15 of their own money to make up the difference.  The waitress returned with their cash, and said that there was still a balance on the gift card - and they realized that the card was for $100 and not $40.  As soon as it dawned on them that they had money to spare, the wife said, "I immediately thought of Jim, and how he had just told us that we really CAN trust God to take care of our needs."  They left a very generous tip for the waitress, and left the restaurant having learned one more small lesson about "The God Who Sees."

“Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’  For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you."    Matthew 6: 31-33

The difference love makes

What a difference to wake up feeling rested this morning.  My nights continue to be restless, and I sleep in spurts and snatches.  The deep-down feeling of weariness behind my eyes tends to follow me around throughout the day, and last night during my message I realized how difficult it was for me to keep my train of thought going in one direction.  Several times while I was speaking I had to stop and think about what I'd planned to say next . . . must have seemed very disjointed for the few brave souls who came in spite of the snow last night.  After we got home last night Jacqueline told me how sad she feels for me that I don't ever sleep well, and how hard it must be to function when I always feel sleepy.  Her concern meant a lot to me, and Daphne suggested that they pray for me to sleep well last night.  And I did.  I don't look very far down the road anymore in terms of believing that I'll sleep well "from now on" - been there and done that too many times.  BUT, I am very grateful for every decent night's sleep I have.

It snowed last night - about eight inches from the looks of it.  We desperately need this snow because we're still way, way down in total moisture for the year here in Conifer.  The snow this time of year is heavy and wet - very different from the light, fluffy snow in the Fall. 

Daphne and I are enjoying the opportunities we've had recently to do some counseling in the church.  Truth be told, we're not really doing "counseling" per se - it's more like sitting down with good friends across a table and talking about the things that are troubling us.  Several people have told us recently that they've never been a part of a church where they feel so loved; for most of them, their religious experience in the past has left them emotionally and spiritually wounded, and in many cases its been years since they set foot in any church.  I think the two biggest differences we've noticed here (at The Journey) are our commitment to help those in need with any resources at our disposal (without delaying to debate if the needs are "valid" or not), and secondly our willingness to tackle problems head-on instead of tip-toeing around the issues that are obvious to everyone, but that no one wants to address.  People get damaged by churches and organizations when - rather than loving someone enough to be honest and direct - the church just moves them to another job, or makes life hard enough so they'll leave of their own accord, or (maybe the worst of all) just ignores them.  This is contrary to the model Jesus demonstrated.  He confronted sin directly and forthrightly, while at the same time loving the person deeply and genuinely.   Is it possible to love someone deeply AND tell them what their real problem is?  Absolutely.  Do we always receive loving confrontation well?  Obviously not, as the revolving door at the rear of the church testifies.  I for one am grateful for our commitment as a church leadership team to love everyone  - both in our church and outside - in word and in deed.  And part of loving people well is to refuse to allow hidden agendas and invisible elephants to prosper. 

Bears and Fires

The bears are awake and they're hungry.  The Forest Service has issued warnings not to attract the bears with food or garbage; due to the unseasonably warm winter (on this side of the Divide anyway) the bears' normal Spring food is in low supply, and they've taken up a life of crime  - breaking and entering to take OUR food.  I've actually only seen one bear since we moved to Colorado, and that was in the summer of 2009 when I was fishing with my friend Mike McCoy in Cheeseman Canyon.  We supposedly have a few bears that hang out in our neighborhood, but short of putting out a good supply of ALPO dog food I don't expect to see them.  Someone suggested that I make a wooden sign with the words, "Bears like people; they taste like chicken."

The SMART team is now up and running at church.  SMART stands for Security and Medical Response Team - I added the "A", because otherwise it would be the SMRT team which doesn't sound nearly as cool.  Our goal is to have three security guards and one medical responder present at every service.  One of the local fire stations has agreed to donate a full medical/ first aid kit, as well as a used AED device; you have to love the heart of this community to look out for each other.  There is a part of me that genuinely hopes we never have a need for the SMART team to intervene in a medical or security emergency... but there's another part of me that is just waiting for that day.  I guess it's my crisis management background, or just the fact that I tend to be a sheepdog by nature.  Either way, we'll never really know how well prepared we are until a real emergency happens. 

Tonight I will be teaching the second sermon in the new series: "From First Corinthians to First Coloradans".  The church in Corinth had written to Paul with a whole series of questions, but he doesn't even start to respond to what they wrote until chapter 7.  Up to that point, he has to deal with the REAL problems that he heard about from someone from Chloe's household.  Just like human nature - there's the problems we are willing to talk about, and then there are the real problems several layers deeper.  Seems like the sooner we can get past all the smokescreens to get to the real issues, the sooner we can begin with healing and reconciliation.  Daphne is helping Mike to teach a marriage workshop this weekend that should be fun - I think there's 80 or 90 people who are signed up so far.  Mike will do most of the teaching, but at some point the men and women will break into two groups and Daphne will take the ladies.  She's spend a lot of time working on the 30 minutes she's responsible for, and I know she'll do a great job.  More on that after this weekend.

I almost forgot to mention the fires:  we've had several small fires in our area recently, and this summer is gearing up to be a very dangerous one for wildfires.  We're about 30-40 inches below our normal snowfall in Conifer, and the forest is tinder-dry already.  The strange part of this is that all the ski resorts on the other side of the Continental Divide have had record years of snowfall - over 400 inches in some cases.  I've already cut down several trees that were a little too close to the house, and I plan to buy a second water hose to cover the back deck.  We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for smoke!

A Chance Encounter

Sterling and I were on our way back to the church after working out at the gym last week when we came upon a car that had gone off the road and into the median ditch on Hwy 285, so we pulled over to check on the driver.  The elderly woman behind the wheel seemed to be OK, and insisted that she didn't want us to call 911.  "I just want to go home", she said, and asked us if we thought she should just drive herself back to her house.  "No, I don't think that's a good idea" I replied.  She seemed disoriented (understandably) and she couldn't explain how she'd ended up where she was.  Besides, I wasn't sure what shape her car was in because she'd driven completely over a dirt mound and a concrete water culvert on the other side.  We drove her back home and found that she lives on 40 acres of land in a home that her husband built himself - a beautiful log house built along a stream.  When we felt reassured that she was not injured, we exchanged contact information and left. 

Later on back at the church, Sterling and I explained what had happened to Mike - and from his background as a firefighter he was concerned that our new friend had actually had a stroke.  We decided to drive back to the house to double check on her, and we found her husband in the garage cutting kindling.  We were looking over the minor damage to the front of the car when her husband noticed for the first time a huge dent in the passenger side roof where something had literally punched a hole almost all the way through the metal. How in the world had that happened?  We hadn't actually seen the accident happen, but we couldn't imagine any scenario that could explain the dent and hole in the roof.  We checked the wife for signs of a stroke, but she seemed fine.  Sterling and I immediately hit it off with this couple, and we decided to find out how we could help them since they seemed to be all on their own out there in the country.  In the course of our conversation I found out that their daughter would be coming up from Littleton the next day (Saturday), so we made plans to be there to talk with her about the accident and the repairs for the car.

Heath and I went back the next day under the pretext of looking the car over more thoroughly.  However, my real desire was to get the daughter on her own to tell her what had happened, and that we suspected that her Mom had actually blacked-out at the wheel.  Heath "jumped on the hand-grenade" for me and kept the mother occupied in the garage while I spoke to her daughter outside. A funny side note:  Heath ran out of things to say to keep the Mom preoccupied, as she kept trying to listen in to our conversation outside the garage, so he just started talking nonsense.  The old woman finally turned to look at him and said, "I don't understand a word you're saying!" And Heath replied, "Me neither... I guess I had a brain fart."  That's what friends are for!   Anyway, in talking to their daughter I learned that she and her siblings had been trying to convince her folks (especially her Mom) to stop driving for years, but she stubbornly refuses.  They also want to them to move closer to town,  but after building the home and estate with their own hands, this is understandably a very difficult idea for them to swallow.

The old man asked us to show them where the accident happened, so he and his wife and their daughter and son-in-law hopped in their truck and followed Heath and I back to the scene.  Only then did we discover what had really happened:  She had apparently gone off the road at high speed about 100 yards further up the road, knocked a 1/4 inch thick road sign right off its base, veered into the oncoming traffic, veered back onto the median, over another water culvert and finally stopped - which is where we found her.  She was lucky to be alive, let alone not have killed someone else.  The road sign she'd hit had flipped up, punctured the roof and then bounced off the back of the vehicle - it's a miracle it didn't come through the windshield. 

We all went to the Angry Llama for lunch, and as we sat there the old man said, "We sure are lucky to have met you guys!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate all you've done for us."  I replied that people really need to look out for each other in life.  "Trust me", he said. "That stopped years ago".  "Well",  I said, "I guess we're old fashioned, because that's what we do."  On impulse I turned to his wife and said, "I'm going to put on my Pastor's hat for a moment and suggest that you really need to consider the idea of not driving anymore.  You could have seriously hurt yourself or killed someone else."  She sat and listened, but didn't say much.  Her husband told me later how grateful he was that I'd brought up the touchy subject, as it made it easy for he and his daughter to talk to her later at home.  As expected, however, she's not giving up her independence without a fight.

Since that time I've been down to their house several times to check up on them, and they both just keep saying how they've been so blessed to get to know us.  Yesterday Heath and I took them with their car to a body shop to get an estimate on the repairs, and I drove the wife in her car while Heath followed behind in my truck.  She and I had a very significant conversation on the way, and she admitted to me that she's not a happy person.  "Why aren't you happy?" I asked, and she proceeded to tell me how she'd lost a son many years ago, and about her unhappy marriage.  As we talked I found out they're both Jehovah's Witnesses, although their faith hasn't apparently helped her to find joy in life.

I know the Lord well enough to discern that this "chance" encounter along the side of the road is part of a bigger plan ... and my prayer is that God will bring this couple a new freedom from fear and bitterness in their waning years of life.  Nothing is impossible for Him.