The Will of God

Okay, before I write what I need to, let me just tell you my roommate has been going through the mail and she is laughing her head off with each piece. As you all know, it's election time, and I got about 20 pieces of political mail. I saw the pile, it's not an exageration. The reason she was laughing so hard is I am an indipendent, she is not. Katie did not get ONE piece of political mail, not one, I got 20. I think they are trying to win me over...

The real reason I am writing besides avoiding emptying out the month old green soup Katie just took out of the fridge and asked me to throw away because she still needs to eat dinner, is because I am speaking to the the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship group at Willamette University on Wednesday. The man who asked me gave me a short list of suggested topics I had requested. It was a list of what the students wanted to hear about and knowing they are college students, what was on the list made sense to me.

-how to deal with my own spiritual life when school is hard and time is short
-how do we know Godʼs will for us/how do we listen to God?
-what to do when your spiritual life feels stagnant?, What is the next step, how do we move out of that?
-Anything on prayer
-Anything on evangelism

Initially, I read the one about the will of God and laughed to myself as I know I have a different idea about the will of God than the classic evangelical view I grew up with and I am sure many of them share. (I too, spent time in Intervarsity but at OSU.) So I skipped over it initially and looked at the others. However, I was so intrigued with the chance of getting to speak on how we and God make choices together and the images of God this engenders, that I realized, because it is different, perhaps that is the very reason I SHOULD speak about it. So that is what I am doing. My coworker says I won't be asked back but I'm doing it anyway because at one time, this was something I needed to hear and someone was willing to share it with me. Now, I want to share it with another. To get my thoughts out, I thought I would write to you about the topic and perhaps even use it as my November newsletter on my website. That way, I get to work through what I want to say and a blog post out of it at the same time!

So I am going to start by asking them what they have learned about following the will of God. What are their ideas about it? How do you "find the will of God?" I am guessing many of their answers are going to be close to what I was brought up with, that God has a plan for you and it is your job to pray and seek after what that is. The problem I see with that is how do you know you've found it? How do you live your life and not keep second guessing yourself that God wants you somewhere else? Or what if you are passionate about music but you think God is going to send you as a missionary somewhere else? Does your opinion count at all? Or what if you think you found it and then fail miserably? What then? Have you fallen out of favor with God?

When I came face to face with these questions, I was in my mid-twenties. I had already thought I had found "the will of God" and then failed miserably at it when I was 21. I was heartbroken and for two years after that, I felt like whatever I touched just came apart around me. Had I been wrong? What had happened? I thought I had stepped out in faith and I stepped into depression instead. Three years later found me at seminary where I felt God wanted me to be, still stubbornly holding to what I thought God wanted and his "plan for my life". Firmly entrenched in doing what was right and wrong and what I should and shouldn't do, I met a woman who looked me in the eye and asked, "Why?" She helped me ask is there really a right and wrong plan? It became a humorous point between us taking out the words "right," "wrong," and "should" out of my conversation. I felt like I had to follow a thin line of God's approval and all hell would break loose if I fell off, which I did-often. In the end, I felt terrible about myself. I had failed God, again. I felt so ashamed of myself, I was trash and I just wanted to throw myself away. But this woman wouldn't let me, not to mention God. Through months, actually years, of conversation, she helped me see some startling truths that changed my life and the way I interact with God. (More about that when I get back from buying a pumpkin from the grocery store for tomorrow's tap dancing class.)