DECISIONS, DECISIONS
Are you looking at some difficult decisions? Are you uncertain about which course of action to take?
John 10:27 says, “My sheep hears My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me”. Do you hear God’s voice? More importantly, do you follow Him?
Last Thursday, I found myself attending Gordon T. Smith’s Seminar on Listening to the Voice of Jesus: On Prayer and Discernment. If it wasn’t because it was compulsory, I would most probably have skipped it.
That’s because I kinda see myself as an expert in this area already – yeap, read it all, done it all, even HEARD it all….including the audible voice of Jesus. Didn’t even get the wrong discernment on that one – He said “You follow Me”. I remembered crying for more than two hours after that. Not the sad, hysteria kind but rather one of gratitude. Perhaps it was my first awesome spiritual experience, it completely “took me by surprise”. Does He really love me that much, He even chose to make Himself real to me? How many Christians in the world except for that “incorrigible” classmate of mine Kenneth Fong perhaps, who has literally became as famous as Gordon Smith himself after his book, Why Me, God? was published (so “jealous” of him) gets these sort of privileges? Certainly not every day. So, why bother with another “Hearing God’s Voice” seminar????
Well, there can’t be anything new. Don’t expect much, I told myself. It will just probably be the usual stuff - on how to hear from God, the techniques to use - as if God is a set of manuals, we can just flip open and follow the instructions. No.1, do this. Then go on to No.2 and do this…blah, blah, blah.
And how very wrong I was. I soon found myself on the listening end of an articulate discourse on how evangelical Christians approach spiritual discernment and how we can empower others to hear more clearly the voice of Jesus for themselves, building on the rich spiritual tradition that spans the diversity of history and theology from Ignatius Loyola to Jonathan Edwards to John Wesley.
Gordon Smith certainly has no trouble explaining his ideas. Overrall, he managed to be practical without being overly how-to-ish. He approached the topic as a learned skill – listening to the Holy Spirit through scripture and prayer, and allowing God’s voice to shape our minute choices, hearing and responding in wisdom.
Christians he said ought to be able to answer two very important questions at any time in their life: what is Jesus saying at this point in your life? And how do you know it is Jesus that you are experiencing? To these two questions, Smith further adds that on one can do this for you except you yourself.
Having considered myself an expert on the first two questions, it was the addendum to the two questions that caught my attention. Sitting at the very front pew with my that very “incorrigible” classmate, Kenneth Fong and his co-author and wife, Sherryl (this must be a Divine arrangement - God’s three very privileged people together, I thought), it suddenly “illuminated” on me, that this was my “problem”. I have been depending on others to discern God’s message for me because I doubt the message.
When we doubt God’s message or that what God calls us to do may strike us as unreasonable, we doubt his love. Thus, we may hesitate in our decision-making and this will undermine our inner confidence prompting us to look to others for reassurance and affirmation. This creates a problem. Two friends may offer two different opinions. To say yes to one, is to say no to the other and risk rejection. We also may be tempted to rely upon the external circumstances for reassurance and all these leads to error and/or disobedience, ultimately causing sin.
Gordon Smith himself said in his book The Voice of Jesus, “Nothing is so fundamental to the Christian journey as knowing and feeling that we are loved. Nothing”. Without the unqualified assurance that we are loved, Smith states, we are handicapped in our capacity to discern what is best for us.
That was what happened to me. I could not discern what was best for me because I doubted the message - it didn’t make sense to me! As a result I could not respond in love - I doubted the message, I doubted the love and I turn to others for answers. Unknowingly, I have allowed men to replace God.
I am so glad I went last Thursday. I did learn something after all. It has taught me how to judge and discern well instead of having other people making judgment and discernment for me. The mind that was given to us by God is a gift from God and we need to judge and discern what’s happening to us emotionally with the use of the mind. God will not call us to do what is blatantly unreasonable or foolish.
The only way to discern what is best for me is to increase my love for Him and no one can do this for me except me myself.
Here are the urls to the 2 nights' messages of Dr Gordon Smith, Thanks tothe PA crew of True Way Presby. Church:
Night 1 Message http://www.mediafire.com/?4x1jecfg1wg
Night 2 Message http://www.mediafire.com/?6xmctvxeizm
The first file is 50+ MB and the second is 54+ MB.
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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