When it is Wrong to Want to Know God’s Will

I just came across a little something I wrote nearly three years ago. I've revisited this topic many times since in passing conversations, but had somehow forgotten that I had once written about it. As I am short of current posts this fall, and as I am still trying to live out the lessons stated here, I thought it was worth sharing now. 

When it is Wrong to Want to Know God’s Will
28 December 2008

There is a perpetual struggle amongst Christians to relinquish control to our Creator, to allow him to guide us daily in the path of his own choosing, according to his own will. Never mind that the path is also one according to his own goodness; we simply would rather have the freedom to choose a lesser path – and routinely do.

But there comes a time in many of our lives when, having ventured out on a path of our own choosing and found a dead end or a stain-darkened alley one too many times, we reach a point of desperation. Now it has come: Now (finally) I am willing to submit to your will, Lord. Bring it on! Just show me what you want me to do. Now that I’ve exhausted my ideas, I’ll give your way a try.

I recently reached such a point in my life. I finally had to admit that my little version of reality was in fact a swiftly fading daydream. The path before me was slipping away beneath my feet, and I was grasping for a handhold. After months of feeling assured that God was clearly leading me to a specific destination, I had begun to feel thwarted at each attempt to move forward on my journey. It seemed as if God had changed his mind, as if he had erased the route completely and hadn’t bothered to draw up a new one.

At that point I wandered for an extended period in a barren land, aimless and without purpose. I grieved the loss of my unrealized dreams, I attempted to create new dreams to replace the old, I occasionally gave myself over to the despair of imagining the status quo stretching out forever without a hope for change. I begged God, I ignored God, I accused him – of teasing, testing, torturing me. I felt that life as I was living it was hardly worth living at all, and I sank deeper into the paralyzing mire of despair and self-pity.

It was at this point that I finally became willing to do God’s will – whatever it was. All I needed to know was what it was. The unknowing, the limbo was killing me. I needed specifics: who, what, where, when, why. I was in a place of total submission (or so it seemed to me at the time), humbly desiring to receive my orders. Just tell me your will, Lord, and I will do it. I’m ready. You’ve stripped me down to the barest humility, and I admit your way is best. Now fill me in!

And then I read two little verses in Isaiah that threw me for a loop: “Woe to those who draw sin along with cords of deceit, and wickedness as with cart ropes, to those who say, "Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it. Let it approach, let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it." (Isaiah 5:18-19)

Woe to those who desire to know God’s plan? Why would the prophet bemoan those who sought to know God’s will? Isn’t that what the Christian life is all about, to know and do the will of God? How could that be wrong?I was completely perplexed. I didn’t understand the passage, but I knew that God had brought it to my attention for a reason.

What God and friends and time eventually revealed to me was that the problem was not in the knowing itself, but in the motives behind the knowing: Tell me what you want so I don’t have to keep trusting you in the darkness of unknowing. The issue is about control. Trusting in the midst of darkness is incredibly uncomfortable – I can’t take even a single step without guidance lest I lose my way, or knock my head on a low-hanging branch, or fall down a rabbit-hole. I must hold out my hand for guidance every single inch of the way.

But if I could know – could see – the path! Then I could really go somewhere, then I could really make progress. I might even find a handy shortcut, or a more scenic route to the same destination. Then I could withdraw my hand and take control once again.

And that is the woe, that in the seeking to know his will we sometimes are in fact seeking a way to get out of trusting him – to be “free” of him and his constant “interference” in our lives. And it is a woe indeed, for we will have traded his providence for a freedom that is no freedom at all.

In the midst of my struggles, I realised that what God desires is a deeper, more intimate relationship with me. I didn’t need to know the specifics of God’s will after all. I could follow along in the darkness, inch by inch by inch, never seeing where it was I was headed, trusting that God would make my feet secure. In a sense, the unknowing, the limbo was killing me – killing my stubborn independence and self-reliance so that I would be forced to throw myself wholeheartedly into the arms of God – his mercy, wisdom and love. And that is true freedom.

Favour in the Wilderness: A Reflection

Note: I've been mulling this over and wondering if it's too melodramatic or too interior to post on Bookmeal...there is a lot that I have left unsaid and what I have said is messy and rather open-ended. But, in the interest of honesty, and because this is my first attempt at a post in three months, what the hey! Here goes, for better or worse...


--

My last post was dated May 3rd. Yes, well. This summer I have been uprooted from my "country life in the Canadian prairies" (as per my introductory blurb on the right) to - what shall I call it? Urban sophistication in Alberta's downtown core? Right now it feels more like "self-doubt straddled on the fence between here and there." Time will tell.

I lived in Niton Junction, Alberta, Canada for eight years. That is the longest I have ever lived in one place. The second longest stretch was seven years in San Diego, from birth to age 7. After that, my life has been snipped into tidy three-year packages, give or take. I have been uniquely shaped by each place I have lived, but perhaps on an even deeper level I have been shaped by the act itself of perpetual home-hopping. Over the years I have had difficulty defining home. Where is it? What is it?

I moved to the country with all the passion and dreamy-eyed wonder of a newly-married twenty-eight year old (sort of) artist, a tender shoot just beginning to rise out of the rich soil that had nurtured and nourished me during my five years at Regent College in Vancouver. I had plans. I had technicolour dreams for our little acreage life in the middle of nowhere.

But it didn't happen. During the last four years in particular, I watched so many of those dreams die, one by one by one. I felt like little pieces of me were dying too, and I grieved. Over and over again, I seemed to hear one word from God: No. I was crushed under the weight of it, defined by the pain of it, and at times embittered by the unfairness of it.

Over time and for reasons I don't fully understand, the good earth of my previous growth had become a parched and barren land, and I was a bruised reed. I had ceased to produce seed. I was so hunched over I no longer was able to provide shade for others.

"Therefore I am now going to allure her; 

   I will lead her into the wilderness 

and speak tenderly to her."

Hosea 2:14

God in his mercy met with me in the desert and spoke words of comfort and life. He spoke of his faithfulness and his love. He also showed me that some of his No's were in fact only Not yet's. There was still hope, a future for me in his keeping.

This is what the LORD says:

 “The people who survive the sword 

will find favor in the wilderness;    

I will come to give rest to Israel.”

~

"They will come and shout for joy on the heights of Zion; 
they will rejoice in the bounty of the LORD-- 
the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, the young of the flocks and herds. 
They will be like a well-watered garden, 
and they will sorrow no more. 
Then young women will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. 
I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. 
I will satisfy the priests with abundance, and my people will be filled with my bounty,” 
declares the LORD.

(Jeremiah 31: 2, 12-14)

I don't presume to say that the not yet has arrived and become now. Whether I like it or not, it's the nature of pilgrimage and the Christian life to keep moving, to keep pressing on toward. Who knows what trials this new leg of the journey holds? But what I can say for sure is this: In February, just six short months ago, God said Yes. Aside from the geographical details of moving our family of six from Niton to Edmonton, it remains to be seen exactly what else he was saying Yes to at the same time. Opportunity, sacrifice, joy, pain, brokenness, hope? A helping of each, I'd imagine. I'm a little less romantic this time, or at least trying to be. And I think that's okay - it's not cynicism or pessimism, but a willingness to let God define my adventures a bit more broadly than I would if I were in charge...Which I'm not...Which is the point - a lesson I learned in the desert.

~
Becky
Edmonton, AB

Undragoning: Praying As We Are, Not As We Ought

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by CS Lewis
Progress: 56/124

"Oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off?" - Eustace Clarence Scrubb

Okay, so as my husband pointed out regarding my last post, I didn't actually mention Letters to Malcolm. True. It was meant as a sort of preamble to some more specific thoughts on his writing, which I have not yet put down on paper. The Letters are there, though, informing my thoughts and attitudes about prayer. This is a second or third reread for me, and the words in this book have come like old friends to visit me many times through the years.

The most specific words I've been thinking about recently are in his statement that "We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us." (22) Instead of simply being known by God, prayer is an opportunity for us to reveal ourselves to God, to unveil what is in us. Of course He already knows us better than ourselves; the point is that we become participants in the knowing, the revealing, and consequently, the confessing of our sins to God. There's no point in going to the doctor if we won't admit what's wrong. The doctor may know we're sick, our friends may see our disease, our very flesh may be wasting away, but healing will not happen until the patient himself is ready to admit it and receive the help and support that has always been available to him.

So, we must reveal, unveil ourselves to God. We must come to Him as we are, lovehandles and all. We might as well get it all out - all the frustration, longing, failing, needing, wanting, denying, resisting - for He already knows it's there, and yet He still desires to meet with us. There is no sin too scandalous, no request too trivial, to reveal to God. Lewis' comments revolve around the latter (innocent desires), but I believe the former (sinful desires or actions) also applies. The concern I think we both would have is that of irreverance before God. Is it proper to complain to God? No, of course not. But at the same time it is honest to admit that we have complaints, and where better to have those complaints put into proper perspective than at the feet of God? If I wait until I have no complaints before talking to God, I might be out of touch for a while. I can stew about them on my own, cut off from God by my own unconfessed sin. But if I admit my frustrations to God, they will find their answer in Him - just as Job finally got his answer from God:

"Who is this that darkens my counsel without knowldege?
Brace yourself like a man;

I will question you, and you shall answer me." (Job 38:2-3)

"Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?

Let him who accuses God answer him!" (Job 40:2)

God put Job in his proper place, and that made a proper man out of Job: he agreed with God and acknowledged his own unworthiness. I find hope in the fact that although Job struggled with God and the assertions of his unhelpful friends for thirty-seven chapters, in the end, God defended him against his friends as "one who has spoken of me what is right" (Job 42:7,8). All those words of despair, complaint, depression, and challenge, and what God heard in the end was that Job agreed with Him. And then He blessed Job.

So, if we will give our brokenness to God, He will set the bone aright. We have the choice to leave the broken bone to heal on its own, sewing its cells back together with the crooked stitches of a child, forever a handicap in our lives. We also have the choice to allow Him (and yes, I believe He generally prefers to have our permission) to restore our broken bones and make them new again, so they can continue to serve our bodies as they were meant to do.

Having emphasized the importance of our willingness to be truly honest about who we are, the question remains as to what extent we are capable of doing so. As with Eustace and his "undragoning" in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, God rewards our attempts at revelation with His own truer, deeper revelation of who we are (as well as who we ought to be). Would it be fair to suggest that Eustace's first attempts at undressing himself was in part what led him to a willingness to be undressed by the Lion?

"Then the lion said - but I don't know if it spoke - 'You will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you,but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

"The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off." (from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis, page 108-109)

If are to know God, we must strip and be stripped of all that hides the truth in our lives. As The 77s song says, we are to "Pray naked." What beautiful costumes have we rigged up to adorn ourselves in an attempt to feel better about ourselves and to make others think better of us? If must all come off, if we are to be right with God, who "reveals the deep things of darkness and brings deep shadows into the light" (Job 12:22), and He in His mercy will not leave us exposed, but will dress us in New Clothes of His own making.

"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent." - Revelation 3:17-19

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Prayer in the Field

Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, by CS Lewis
Progress: 56/124

It shouldn't be surprising that when one sets out to learn about prayer, opportunities for practicing prayer will reveal themselves with increasing intensity. On Sunday, it was my three-and-a-half-year-old son, R, with a gash on his forehead, just about to the bone. Without naming names, I prayed that God would let there be a "good" doctor on call - that is, not one of the mean or incompetent ones I've encountered there in the past. God answered favourably, and provided a very kind doctor, whom R dubbed the "Daddy Doctor," and who was so gentle in his manner that R fell asleep on the table even as he was being stitched up (four stitches, for those interested in such things).

Tuesday brought turmoil of a more personal nature, and in my despair I went for a walk. There, under cover of darkness and in the blessed privacy of stars and snowy fields, I yelled. I accused. I was even, momentarily, sarcastic. It was not a pious prayer, but it was honest, and I hope that, at least, honoured God in some way - that I didn't lie to His face (so to speak) and try to sound submissive when in fact I was feeling about as rebellious as a goody-two-shoes like me can get. Amazingly, after the drama, I walked home with a renewed sense of peace and trust.

Tuesday also brought the devastating earthquake in Haiti. I sat transfixed before the computer, assaulted by images of pain and suffering, and unable to turn my eyes or attention away for a very long time. It occurred to me later that tragedy of this magnitude should have rendered my own problems irrelevant, at least for a while, but it didn't. I just made room in my heart for more sadness. Eventually, I remembered to pray about Haiti, too, instead of just feeling sad but helpless.

Tuesday is also my Bible study preparation day, and so I read the first few chapters of Regent College professor and Vancouver pastor Darrell Johnson's book, Fifty-Seven Words That Change The World: A Journey Through The Lord's Prayer. I read about prayer a lot more than I prayed that day, for all my woes.

On Wednesday morning I drove to Bible study, and in the silence of my car, prayed the Lord's Prayer, for the first time really praying it, letting the words draw out of me the sadness, despair, and longing that needed to be given over to those fifty-seven words and the One who hears them.

In Bible study, I taught about prayer, as a blind person leading others who could surely lead the way more capably. At the end, I burst into tears, and heard the heartfelt and teary prayers of other women on my behalf. I experienced the solidarity and community of the body of Christ at that moment, after I had been more honest and vulnerable than I've ever been with them before.

On Wednesday night I had a phone appointment, which I had arranged before my week had begun to fall apart. I was tempted to cancel, as my specific reason for calling seemed moot in light of the recent events and I felt drained. But by God's grace I did call, and was ministered to by a friend and fellow-pilgrim who had previously walked a journey similar to the one upon which I am now travelling, stumbling and grumbling along the way. She prayed through a passage in Jeremiah with me, and I saw glimpses of myself and my situation in those words of Scripture. I felt solidarity with the exiles in Babylon. I ended the phone conversation with a renewed sense of my identity and of God's purpose and plan for me in light of (no longer in contrast to) that identity. I could breathe a little deeper. For a little while I experienced joy.

Thursday brought more turmoil, although a remnant of the peace and trust from my walk on Tuesday hovered nearby, protecting me from despair.

Friday allowed me some respite from my woes and I focused again on the more pressing needs and desperate suffering of Haiti. After a growing sense that more than my prayers were required in response to the catastrophe, I donated money to aid in the relief efforts, and set my mind to thinking what else might be done on behalf of the Haitians.

On Saturday, peace came to my home. Giving and receiving, hearing and understanding, dreaming and planning were the agents of that peace.

And all these, things, I believe, were fruits of the many prayers made by me and for me this week, a personal response from Our Father, who art in heaven.

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