Author | Vagabond Preacher | Lover of the Poor | Grandpa
Almost 30 years ago I wrote a paper on what I believed about divine guidance. Recently I decided to review, edit, and add to what I taught as a 20-something pastor. I thought it might take a few weeks to shore up the writing and insert some anecdotes from my decades of trial and error method finding God’s will. I wanted to tell some of the stories of me floundering and falling, and of Jesus running to my rescue. He’s good that way. Without his patient tutelage I’d be as lost as the lost I hope to find and introduce to our Guide. Anyway, It took me (off and on) over a year to rewrite what I believe at present about how he guides his followers.
You know it works in the world of the blog – though I’ll post the chapters in the order in which they make the most sense (at least to me), they’ll appear in the blog in the opposite order. I do recommend that you read the Introduction first (it’s particularly important in order to get a sense of where I’m coming from) and then after that maybe the next four or five chapters in order. After that, if you’re not up for reading all the sections, you could pick and choose what interests you most without losing the sense of the paper as a whole.
Here are the chapter titles, which I’ll publish in this original order:
• Some introductory thoughts
• The God Positioning System
• The Bible is your first stop
• Use your “Sanctified Common Sense”
• He speaks; can you hear him?
• Sometimes he’s silent
• Find out what he’s doing and do it with him
• Observe the burden…
• Listen to your friends (especially the good ones)
• There’s usually a “peace” when it’s right
• Sometimes it takes some serious seeking
• Open and closed doors
• You gotta live right to hear right
• How’s your “whatever”?
• Divine appointments
• Being led without realizing it (until later)
• Enjoy Jesus every day
• When you pray
• Keep moving
• My problem with the strategic plan
• You might have to wait a while
• Signs & Fleeces
• Dreams, visions, and angels
• Sometimes he sends a prophet
• Notice the repeated notices
• I think I “missed it”
• In conclusion
If you love God and care about his will, I sure hope that you’ll find this writing to be helpful. (My guess is that few who don’t love him will have even arrived at this point to read my musings, and if they have, would be less than enthused to read on.) But for those who genuinely want God’s will for their lives (in the big picture and the small), I hope to demystify rather than mystify the subject. If my approach isn’t helpful to you, then stop reading my words and give your fullest attention to God’s words in the Bible!
[Chapter 15 of "How God Guides." I'm sure we can all relate to this, where God does his leading sort of behind our backs! If you have a story about this, I'm sure we'd all like to hear it...] “You don’t realize now what I’m doing, but later you will understand.” John 13:7 “Guidance doesn’t …
Continue reading "Being led without realizing it (until later)…"
[Chapter 14 of "How God Guides"... You know when you find yourself in a situation that seems coincidental, but you're pretty sure this wasn't just the power of fate or luck? You know when you have a "chance meeting" someone in a place you never go, with someone you haven't seen in years, and you …
[This is chapter 13 of "How God Guides." Did you ever have a "Whatever"? If not, do you want one? If so, how will you keep it and not lose it like I did? If you do lose it, how does one get it back? All very deep theological topics...] I was in the darkest …
[Chapter 12 of "How God Guides"... I'm certainly not saying here that we have to be perfect to expect God to lead us. But you have to admit that it makes sense that he would lead people who are going to do their best to do what he leads them to do. Right?] He leads …
[Here's an 11th chapter of the "How God Guides" paper. Some of us use the terminology of "the open and closed door" to describe circumstances when it seems that God has put an obstacle in front of us to discourage us from going one way or when he appears to have orchestrated other circumstances to …
barney wiget 