Experiencing God

I loved listening to Beth Guttenburg's stories this weekend. I have not had the opportunity to read her book "Reckless Faith" yet, but have heard her God stories are impactful and challenging.

In the course of her talk, she reminded me of how important it is as Christ followers not to be asking God what His will is for our lives, but instead to ask Him "God where are you moving at that I can join in"?

This is a paradigm shift for many of us. I know it was for me when I first did the "Experiencing God" study by Henry Blackaby. It was the first time my eyes were opened to this reality. Actually it is one of 7 realities that Blackaby identifies which are often cyclical in our lives. They are:

• God is always at work around you.
• God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that is real and personal.
• God invites you to become involved with Him in His work.
• God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
• God’s invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
• You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
• You come to know God by experience as you obey Him and He accomplishes His work through you.

I went back to my "Experiencing God" workbook and began to reflect on times when I saw these truths play out in my life. The first time I can remember clearly God "speaking to me" and inviting me into his work was the first time I came on staff at VCC as a pastor of small groups. I had no pastoral experience, no biblical education and felt so inadequate. But oh did I feel passionate! I came to a hugh crisis of faith. I was a proverbial Moses telling God why I couldn't. But I can still remember the burning in my heart of hope that maybe I could. My crisis of faith was surrendering my inadequacy to God to turn it to adequacy.

The second time was when God spoke very clearly to quit that very same job to stay home and minister to my family. My crisis of faith was if I were to give up being a pastor, would I ever be one again? I felt like I finally found what I was created to do, and now God was asking me to give it back to Him? My crisis of faith was trusting that I would ever be able to do paid pastoral ministry again. I was giving back to God the very gift I was confident came from him the first place. I grieved the loss....

And then a third...when I was invited back into a temporary role for funerals and pastoral care. God showed me clearly a vision of invitation. One to raise the banner of prayer at VCC. Would I join Him? Crisis of faith one more time. Prayer? Feelings of inadequacy once again washed over me.

Each time He spoke and I answered, surrendering my inadequacy, my doubts and fears, I learned more about myself and about the goodness and power of God.

So here I am again. God is speaking to me about moving forward on a project that I feel totally inadequate. And I just keep reminding myself:

God is able to do anything He pleases with one ordinary person who is fully consecrated to Him.