Should We Seek God’s Will For Our Lives?

[I began writing this post several months ago, but life happened (literally, haha), so I haven’t been writing much lately. It may seem a bit outdated now, but I think it’s a good post and worthy of publishing.]

When we announced that we would be housing a homeless woman and her newborn twins, many people said to us: “Wow, that is so amazing you were called by God to do this.” While we found the support encouraging, those words also struck us a bit funny. It seemed like people thought we had either a) received a very specific, unique leading from God to do that, and/or b) that God had given us certain gifts/strengths to be involved in this type of ministry. In actuality, neither are true.

Many Christians desire to know God’s will for their lives and spend a great deal of time attempting to discover it. We pray and wait for that moment when God reveals his mysterious and secret “plan” for our lives. We hope it will be obvious and perfectly clear, like a billboard on the freeway, an angel appearing in the night, or an audible voice that tells us specifically what to do. In the absence of such spectacular works of God, we find subtler methods of grabbing at any available glimpse of that step-by-step road map He seems to be keeping just out of our reach. However, in our case with this woman, and in most cases, there was no supernatural guidance directing our path. The way we sensed “our calling” was simply this – we read in the Bible we are to love and serve those in need, and we have extra rooms in our house. Period. The End. There was no billboard, no angel, and no voice. Just doing what Jesus said to do.

A couple months ago at church, my pastor, Steve Madsen, put it this way – “Each of us has already been given a big portion of our life assignment. It’s in the scriptures. 90% of your life assignment has already been given to you…You’re only waiting for the local application of what God said to do.” Too often, we over complicate the assignment God has given us. Sadly, all the time we spend searching for God’s specific plan for our lives could be used to accomplish the aspects of His plan that have already been very clearly communicated in the Bible.

In his book Forgotten God, Francis Chan has the following to say about searching for “God’s will”:

There are very few people in the Scriptures who received their life plan from God in advance (or even their five-year plan, for that matter!). Consider Abraham, who was told to pack up his family and all his possessions and start walking. He didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t know if he would ever be back. He didn’t know any of the details we consider vital (e.g., his destination, how long the venture would take, what the cost/rewards would be, whether he’d receive a 401(k) or health insurance). God said to go and he went, and that’s pretty much all he knew.

I think a lot of us need to forget about God’s will for my life. God cares more about our response to His Spirit’s leading today, in this moment, than about what we intend to do next year. In fact, the decisions we make next year will be profoundly affected by the degree to which we submit to the Spirit right now, in today’s decisions.

It is easy to use the phrase “God’s will for my life” as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience. It’s much less demanding to think about God’s will for your future than it is to ask Him what He wants you to do in the next ten minutes. It’s safer to commit to following Him someday instead of this day.

I believe there are two central barriers that have blinded us from the obvious – fear and pride. It is scary to take the commands of Christ seriously, and it is costly to live as He lived. We are afraid of losing the things we have worked so hard for in this life, so we rationalize our avoidance of obedience by convincing ourselves that the simple (yet difficult) commands must be “somebody else’s calling.” In our pride, we would like to believe that God’s plan for our life is more advanced than what He has already laid out in His word. In essence, we are thinking: “Why would God waste such an awesome and gifted individual, like myself, by calling me to the same stuff as everyone else?” The real question is: “Why would God entrust us with special, specific tasks, if we are not obedient to the basic commands we already know?”

Now before you start thinking: “But I’m sure you must have certain giftings and strengths that equipped you to take this woman in” – let me assure you, my strength finders score says otherwise 🙂 I’m a planner, and in this situation, plans were changing more rapidly than I could have imagined. Prior to this experience, we knew little to nothing about drug addiction. I am an introvert, and highly value my personal space and alone time. Hospitality is not one of our strengths and it typically stresses me out. You get the picture…this was one of those times when we were way outside our comfort zones and definitely operating out of our weaknesses. Honestly, it was a painfully stretching and difficult experience for me, and I was literally forced to rely on God every few minutes for wisdom and strength. At the same time, it was a wonderful experience because we knew we were living out what God called Christians to do by loving those in need. God gives each of us unique strengths that he expects us to use, but that does not mean we will always be operating in those strengths in following His call to love Him and others.

Lest you are now under the impression we are so great at following God’s will as laid out in His Word, I assure you, we are not. I often miss the mark and even deliberately choose to ignore His will, but I am trying, and I think I’m moving in the right direction. It is a continual process of growth as I choose to submit to Him.

To wrap this post up, here are my thoughts for those who want to discover what God’s will for your life is:

  1. Read the Bible. Makes sense, right? We can’t know what God’s heart or will is without going directly to the source and reading what His heart and will is.
  2. Pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the will and ability to follow through on what Jesus calls us to do in the Bible.
  3. Consider the resources God has graciously given you, for example: money, time, a home with vacancies, your spiritual gifts, general strengths, etc., and ask Him how you can use them to glorify Him now.
  4. Act! You don’t have to take on all the world’s problems at once, but simply begin by tackling one thing that God has put before you.

Baby Katie Beth Update

Author: Kevin Schlichter

Last February Melissa wrote an entry on Upstream Swimming about our daughter, Kathryn, and asked all of you to be praying for our family. Perhaps you’ve been wondering how that all turned out, so here’s a Thanksgiving update on her situation.

To recap, a few weeks before birth Kathryn Elizabeth (heretofore known as Katie Beth, KB, Kat, Kitty, Katie, or The Reason I’ve Been Super Angry and Not Sleeping for Nine Months) was diagnosed with ventriculomegaly, then born with congenital defects in her ears, nose, and mouth, and a couple of days later she was unofficially diagnosed with Zellweger Syndrome and tested positive for Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). Off the record we were told by one of her specialists that she had no more than six months to live—at the absolute longest. That’s when word started to spread. First our friends started to pray and word quickly spread to others in our church, then relatives, and then their friends and churches started to pray. We were getting cards, flowers, and e-mails from people we didn’t know all over the country telling us they were praying for us. And I don’t know why—I don’t know why He does anything that He does—but God answered those prayers in a way we didn’t expect.

Three days after she was born her ears had moved into a normal location and, although we had originally been told to expect difficulty, she was breathing and eating on her own. After a lot of blood samples, an MRI, and two months of waiting for genetic testing at the Mayo Clinic, her official diagnosis was made: Katie does not have Zellweger Syndrome—or any other known genetic defect. We had been praying for strength to get through the trial, hoping that the loss of a child wouldn’t ruin our marriage and that we’d be able to try again, but He had healed our daughter instead. She still has some brain damage and there may be other long-term effects from the HCMV, but so far she is doing well. In fact, she has been developing perfectly normally. She excels in her intelligence and fine motor skill tests at physical therapy (yeah, infant physical therapy) impressing her doctors with her ability to manipulate a pacifier into the correct position before putting it in her mouth, and her ability to hold her own bottle to feed herself. Kitty has been doing both of these for several months now. Her strength continues to lag, but not by a concerning amount and Robyn and I aren’t muscular anyhow. KB’s head is even a normal size—it was supposed to be disproportionately small as a result of the HCMV.

So this Thanksgiving we’re thankful for our daughter. We’re thankful that she’s here with us, but also for the experience—we grew as a couple and our relationship was affected positively by it. We’re stronger as a team; have a healthier perspective on certain things; opened up to each other and gained a level of intimacy we’ve never shared before. I wouldn’t wish an experience like this on my worst enemy, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Like everything else we do with God, it isn’t easy but it’s very worthwhile.

We’re thankful for our church family, friends, and relatives who supported us in very material ways. We fed not only ourselves, but at least one other family with the food that was brought to us at home and in the hospital. Our dogs were cared for, and we almost had our yard re-landscaped as well. Being around people like the Felkers pushes us to live our lives for God in tangible and meaningful ways. We’re thankful for the example you’ve all demonstrated for us.

Finally, and this is last because I want it to be remembered first, we’re thankful for your prayers. I don’t know why He healed Kathryn and not the other kids in the NICU, but seeing the People of God care for each other always encourages me immensely and provides the best witness I know of. So thank you for taking the time out of your day to pray for us, whom you’ve never met. You can’t fix everything, but you’ve made a difference to us.

http://kathrynelizabethschlichter.shutterfly.com/ 

Capable: Finding Dignity and Community

Sean and I financially support HOPE International, which is a microfinance organization helping people around the world to escape poverty by providing microloans, savings services, training and mentoring. HOPE is a really cool organization – watch this video to see what they do and hear Fadzai’s moving story!

We’re Getting Three Housemates!

When we moved to the east bay last summer and bought a house, we purchased a four bedroom home because our plan is to eventually adopt as many children as God gives us capacity for. As we searched for homes, we decided it wise to purchase a bigger home now, in order to provide for these children down the road while housing prices and interest rates are so low. However, with just the three of us right now, we are only using two of the four bedrooms.

Since moving in, I have entertained the idea of using our downstairs bedroom to provide housing to someone in need once we set the room up. It just seems to me a colossal waste (and selfish hoarding), to have two empty bedrooms while there are so many who are homeless (particularly in this economy). We finally finished our guest room in July, but the summer had been a busy one and I put my hopes to use the room to bless someone on the back burner. Then on August 4th, I saw a status update in my facebook news feed that caught my eye. It was written by a woman who I met while Sean and I were raising funds to be missionaries with Campus Crusade for Christ (and who faithfully supported us while we were on staff with the organization). It read:

Hey I woudn’t have made it if it weren’t for someone who stepped out of their “nice little life” and brought me and my daughter in during a very bad time in my life. Think about it……. God saves but He uses His people to help other people. I will always be grateful to Alan and Danette Lauer who opened their house to me, a lost, broken up drug addict in the 70’s. Did they know what they were doing? NO… But did they trust God? YES AND I AM SO GRATEFUL!

I read the post over and over and couldn’t stop tears from welling up in my eyes. What a powerful testimony! I don’t even know this woman well personally, but I do know she is an amazing woman of God and has an incredible, thriving prison ministry that is impacting numerous inmates’ lives. I just kept thinking: “I want us to be them. I want us to be Alan and Danette Lauer. We have no idea what we’re doing either, but I want to trust God like that.”

I couldn’t stop thinking about her post for the rest of August, so during our 5 year anniversary get-away over labor day weekend, I brought it up to Sean. I read him her post and my desire for us to open up our downstairs bedroom to someone in need. He readily agreed, so we added “contact our church to see if they know anyone in need who could use our downstairs bedroom for free to bless them (single mom, a young girl who recently aged out of the foster care system, missionaries, etc.)” to our list of actions we wanted to take immediately.

When we returned from the trip, I emailed the local missions director at our church to ask her if she knew of anyone. Within a couple of days, I received a response that she indeed knew of a single mother of four who was currently pregnant with twins and living in a motel. She said she has known this family for quite some time and believes this is the turning point for this young woman. She also informed me that her children were being placed with a “safe family” (a family that agrees to take care of children for a short period of time during a crisis situation). After receiving her email, we set up a time to meet this last Thursday (9/20) to discuss this young woman’s situation further.

At the meeting, I quickly received a curve ball and was told she had delivered the twin boys via emergency c section at 35 weeks gestation the day earlier. During the meeting, I just kept thinking: “I can’t imagine having just had a major surgery, two newborn babies, no home to call my own, and no help from a spouse.” I came home and told Sean all about the meeting, we prayed together, and determined this is something God is calling us to do. So tonight this young woman will be coming to stay with us, and her twins (who are one week old today), will soon follow when they get released from the NICU. Talk about a madhouse! 🙂 Right now, our commitment is to provide housing for her, help her care for her twins, assist her in securing longer-term housing, and enable her to attend an addict recovery program during the next 5-6 weeks.

This may just be the craziest thing we’ve ever done (or at least right up there), and while I’m apprehensive about the unknown and selfishly grieving all the sacrifices we’ll have to make, I am thrilled by this opportunity to lay down my life (John 15:13), and to deny myself and take up my cross to follow Jesus (Luke 9:23). 1 John 3:16-18 states: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.  If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?  Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”

Even if this young woman’s life remains unchanged by this experience, I know our lives will forever be changed (and I hope this will be the first of many more opportunities like this to come). Though this experience will be difficult, I’m sure, I am excited for my character to be refined and molded more and more into the likeness of Jesus. “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.’” -Mother Teresa

Please be praying for all six of us during this time, we will need it!! But hey…good thing God won’t give us more than we can handle right!? Haha! 😉 But seriously, this will be a great opportunity to put into practice what I recently blogged about. Isn’t it funny how God does that?? Maybe I should be more careful what I blog about in the future, because it seems He likes to test me on my subject matter soon after posting to see if I really understand 🙂

The New Middle Road

“It’s so weird how in the Church we’ve twisted this and follow Jesus is a different game. You don’t really have to flap your wings. You can just sit there and do it in your heart. Seriously…you know when I read the Scriptures it says whoever claims to know Him must walk as Jesus walked.” A challenging Francis Chan clip – painfully convicting and yet so funny, as usual. Here’s another favorite Francis Chan clip of mine, in case you missed it earlier this year.

God Won’t Give You More Than You Can Handle?

Since becoming a Christian, I’ve heard the phrase “God won’t give you more than you can handle” on numerous occasions. Heck, I’ve heard it so often that I accepted it as Biblical truth and have used the phrase once or twice to encourage myself or another Christian. After all, at first glance it sounds good, feels good, and appears like it could be Scriptural truth. So what’s the problem? The phrase is simply not found anywhere in the Bible.

I am embarrassed to admit this was a recent discovery of mine. After a recent conversation in which the phrase popped up yet again, I felt prompted to research it further. As I searched for the Bible verse(s) this phrase might be quoted from, I could not find any. The most similarly worded verse I found was 1 Corinthians 10:13 – “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.” Morphing this verse into “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is clearly a gross misinterpretation.

In truth, one cannot read the Bible without observing that many of the Biblical characters we admire were given far more than they could “handle.” Moses, Jonah, Jeremiah, Job, Esther, Paul, Peter, etc. etc. Let’s also not forget the millions of martyrs in the history of the Church…I’m assuming death was probably more than what they considered they could handle. The clear truth from the myriad examples found in the Bible is that we are often given more than we can handle in our own power.

Not only is this expression absent from Scripture but it is an affront to the truth that God has revealed in His Word. A situation I can “handle” is one in which my own power and abilities are sufficient. However, the whole point of the Gospel is that because we are sinful, we are unable to handle the most important issue of our lives – our separation from God. This is why we need the work of Christ on the cross…between sin’s destruction and Satan’s scheming, we all find ourselves in a situation that is far more than we can handle. In fact, in the Gospel of John, Jesus himself said “apart from me you can do nothing.”

Moreover, aside from simply being untrue (and an offense to those who are dealing with a situation that is more than they can handle), an additional problem with saying “God won’t give you more than you can handle” is that it takes the emphasis off of God and puts it on us. In reality, God repeatedly allows us to find ourselves in difficult situations to foster a healthy dependence upon Him. Ultimately, it is God himself who “handles” a situation, and thus demonstrates He is the one in control – not us. The truth is we are in constant, daily need of God’s intervention, and until we learn that lesson, we will find our hot-headed, independent, prideful selves back in our anxiety-ridden delusion that we are in control of our lives.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” James 4:13-15

So let’s retire this saying and replace it with this: Yes, God most definitely will allow you to experience situations that are more than you feel you can handle, but God can handle it. As we trust Him, He will be faithful to provide and though our lives may not transpire as we hoped, we can take comfort in the knowledge that His will for our lives is ultimately what is best and will bring Him the most glory…and that is all that matters.

One Survivor’s Response to the CO Theater Shooting

An incredible testimony and solid truth in the aftermath of the CO theater shooting. Definitely worth reading and reflecting upon!

Initial Post: So you still think God is a merciful God?!
Follow Up Post: A Response to the Overwhelming Number of Responses

Why Women Still Can’t Have It All, etc.

I read two interesting articles today I thought were worthy of sharing. The first one is called “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” and has become a very popular and widely read article in the last week. It is written by Anne-Marie Slaughter who “describes her own experience of stepping down from a high-level State Department position to teach at Princeton and spend more time with her children. In the process, she came to an uncomfortable realization: No matter what well-meaning feminists might say, women really can’t have it all. ‘Not today,’ she writes, ‘not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured.'” The article is *super* long, but a good read nevertheless: http://m.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/07/why-women-still-can-8217-t-have-it-all/9020/1/

The second one is entitled “Why There’s No Such Thing as ‘Having It All’ – and There Never Will Be” and is a (much shorter) response to the first article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/why-theres-no-such-thing-as-having-it-all-and-there-never-will-be/258928/ If you don’t have time to read the first article, you could probably just read this one and get a fairly good gist of what the first article is about.

If you are further interested in the subject of mothers balancing careers and family from a Christian/biblical perspective, my friend Sarah did a blog series entitled “passionate, joyful homemaking,” in which she writes on such topics as “should moms pursue a career?” and “God’s creation of a mother’s role.” I’ve read the whole series and while I don’t necessarily agree with everything she wrote, she does have great insight and I found the posts thought provoking.

This subject is certainly one worth discussing and I’d love to get feedback on any or all of the above material…

Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford

Hilarious…one of my fave SNL skits. So simple, but such a difficult concept for most Americans. Both of us have always operated on this “revolutionary” model and we’ve stayed debt-free (with the exception of purchasing a home, since avoiding a home loan is simply not a feasible option in CA, unless you are a cajillionaire)! Even then, we chose a home within our means. I’m sure I’ll write more on this topic in the future…