God’s will is not, I think, an easy thing for most people to find and get hold of. Some people seem to have a good grip on what God wants them to do, but most that I meet ultimately confess that it would be helpful if God could speak a bit more loudly and distinctly.
As Elijah concluded, God often speaks in a “still, small voice.” The problem is that with the rushing wind (or airplanes) and the raging fires (or children) all around, it can be hard to hear that still, small voice. We can be left with a vague sense that God is speaking, but hear only a mumbling.
So it pays not only to listen intently, but to listen long. Many times, what God says becomes clearer the longer we wait. I have found that ultimately I can be quite certain that I hear God’s voice—if I am willing to be patient.
In an age of fast food for lunch, microwave meals for dinner, self-service lines in grocery stores, and pumping your own gas, patience isn’t one of the virtues we usually cultivate. Cultivate is a good word, though. That’s what we need to do: cultivate a sense of God’s will and our purpose. We have to allow things to grow slowly, as slowly as they need to grow. You can’t hurry a plant in the ground; you can’t hurry a baby in the womb; you can’t hurry God’s work in the world.
So how do we both wait on God and not stop working? First, we realize that whether we want it to or not, the world is changing. The way people interact, and even the way people think is changing. We may not like all of the changes. We may not be comfortable with them, but they are there.
Second, we understand the changes. People say that we’re moving from the modern to the post-modern world and from a Christian to a post-Christian society. But what exactly does that mean? And what does it mean for the church, if anything?
Third, we come to grips with what change means for our Christian faith. Should Christians accept many of the changes in society? Should they resist them? What if our faith becomes irrelevant? Does that matter?
Fourth, we must realize that we serve a risen Savior, not a dead Jewish prophet. We serve a God who IS, not a God who WAS. If we truly believe that our Savior “walks” and “talks” with us, then perhaps our Savior has something to say to the people of 21st Century America just as much as to 1st Century Palestine. So we come back to the point of finding (or hearing) God’s will. How do we hear it? When will it become clear? What will God have us do?
These are the very steps we are following now. We will take the next few weeks to discuss the changes in our world. We will try to come to grips with what these mean for our faith, and our church. We will listen for the voice of God and the footsteps of our Savior. This is really the task of our Thursday night meetings that start February 12. If you missed the first one, come to the second. We’ll be glad to have you, and you won’t have missed much.
After we finish with the study, the hard part starts. That’s the listening. Then comes the cultivating. Everything else is up to God.
