God’s been turning the tables on me a lot lately. As I’ve entered into new levels of intimacy in my relationship with Him, I haven’t found many more answers to my questions. I’ve found him asking ME what the answer is. Say I ask Him: "what do you want me to do about thing ‘x’ and ‘y’?" The last few days, the answer has always been: "Well, Joel, what do YOU want to do?"
So, I’m wading through that whole thing, looking for the lesson in it. It’s kinda exciting in some ways, because it indicates a certain level of trust He’s placing in me. I feel my heart is moving the right direction because if He’s giving me permission to seek after what I WANT…well, that indicates my desires are in tune with His.
But it’s kinda odd in some ways as well, because it’s not really what I expected during this portion of my walk. I’ve been reading about all these Old Testament characters who have amazingly intimate relationships with God, and he’s always telling them what to do. I’ve been fascinated by that; I’ve desired that; I’ve longed for the buddy-buddy, chummy relationship with God where we hang with each other throughout the day and night and have continuous interaction. And I guess that is happening to a certain extent; I’m definitely more chatty with Him throughout the day. I just expected more literal direction from Him rather than the infamous "question for a question" that Jesus made so popular.
Which would I prefer? I’m not sure yet. Seems like straight up direction would be a lot easier, but in thinking back to my previous post about faith-filled things being far more appealing to me than the obvious routes, I should be opting for the way things are going: make a choice and step out in faith.
Now the only thing I have to do is train myself to believe that I actually want the RIGHT things. For a long time I’ve doubted my heart–I was convinced that if I desired something, it was likely God wanted the exact opposite for me. And for a while, that might have been true. But I don’t think that’s the case any longer. He’s brought me a long way and has fine-tuned was makes me click. Far more often than not, I have a pure heart and desire the things of God. It’s freeing to begin seeing it manifest in my relationship with Him.
3 replies on ““Questions” or “God: the guy who loves to answer one with one””
Interesting thoughts from the OT, Joel. I’ve been studying John lately, and have been really struck by how much of what Jesus spoke had a current of stirring things up rather than having them all be peaceful. It’s another reminder for me that in my relationship with God things really aren’t going to look like I always thought they would. In fact, lately it’s been quite the opposite.
There’s so much freedom in choice, and yet we spend our lives looking for someone/something to tell us what we should do. What if “free will” is for more than just salvation? What if what God really wants to do is to give us exactly what we long for in relationships and life? What if the things I hope are possibilities actually are possible? Yikes!
WEIRD – I was just reading something last night that got me thinking about that – “that I actually want the RIGHT things” or that I want what God wants. And then today I get to this site, when I was just trying to find a song. I’m aways asking God for confromation to make sure that I’m on the right track, once again he uses more than one source to Get his message through to me.
Glad I could be used, even 2+ years after the fact…