Heavy stuff lately floating around in my brain, I wish I had more time to write during the week, but my evenings have been spent working and playing with the kiddos. So weekends it is for right now.
I have to admit that my view of God’s will has changed lately. A lot of believers hold the same belief that I used to…that God’s will is this mystery that we’re to figure out. It’s this unknown “thing” and that it’s our job as “good Christians” to figure it out and follow it. If we don’t figure out what it is God wants us to do then we’re living outside His will. And for some (myself included) this meant that we had done something wrong. Interpreted some sign wrong and were “doomed” to be living away from what God wanted. Taken even to a more extreme scenario that once you were out of His will, it was going to be pretty tough to get back into His will and there was going to be a lot of pain and suffering in the process.
You know what I’ve learned? God doesn’t roll that way. He isn’t some big mystery, He doesn’t want us to agonize over every decision. His will for our lives is to 1. Love Him! 2. Love your neighbor and 3. He’ll work everything else out for good. The deal is this…If we are continually seeking Him, loving Him with our heart soul and mind, then loving our neighbor as ourselves we’ll be doing His will. That’s what He wants for our lives, He doesn’t want us to be paralyzed with fear that we’ll make the wrong choice and He’s going to be there waiting to thwap us on the head for making a bad decision. He wants us to do something. (That something is to love Him). He wants us to love others. Whatever we decide after that is going to be used for His glory.
That doesn’t mean we’re not going to make some bonehead moves, but as long as we continue to seek His face and love those around us He’ll use those bonehead moves for good. Maybe not right away, but it’ll happen.
An example from our life is our decision to move here to Pueblo and our current situation. When we moved here, we moved here for a job for me. We weren’t necessarily looking for something for Kerry (and we realize now that our priorities were in the wrong place). You know what though? God has used our bonehead move (to come here with the wrong priorities) to bring about some awesome changes and growth in our family. God used our wrong motives to bring us to a place where we have the right priorities. For example, when we first came here we didn’t really have homeschooling on the radar. We thought public school, maybe a private school, would be okay for our kids. Through a series of events God brought us to the understanding that His desire for our family was for us to homeschool and disciple our children. Through study and prayer we’ve come to feel that this is a Biblical command for believers.
When we first came here we had in mind what we needed and wanted from a church. Gabe was attending a preschool at a local church (which is now our church). We decided to visit one Sunday thinking there would be kids from his class there. (There weren’t) But we found a Bible teaching, meat giving, genuine church. We have a fantastic church family. We’ve found a church that has loved us, prayed for us and accepted us (and eachother) flaws and all. We’ve found a church that challenges us and helps us grow. By the way, Gabe’s preschool closed later that fall and we decided to homeschool. Wanna know something cool? The majority of our church at that time had homeschooled their children (almost all of those kids were teens) and we had an instant support group. We had folks that were willing to help teach us, guide us and support us in our decision to homeschool. Totally a God thing.
Our first year in Pueblo we had some money issues (mostly due to adjusting to a teachers salary). Which lead us to Dave Ramsey. While we’re still not debt free, we’re working really hard in that direction. We know that being debt free is going to be the best for us. It’s helping us live in accordance with God’s plan for the lives of those He loves.
We’ve also felt convicted about God’s plan for our family, which has given us 2 more beautiful boys. Lord willing, we will be blessed with more children as He sees fit. He values children as do we. We’ve come to view children as true blessings and allow God to give us as many as He choses. I realize to some this is a totally foreign concept, even within the church. We’d be happy to tell you more about why we feel so convicted about this and why we feel it’s right for our family.
I have come to realize in the recent past that God doesn’t want us to be paralyzed by fear. He’s not trying to make it hard for us by making us “guess” His will. Sometimes the fear of making the wrong choice keeps us from making any choice, which certainly isn’t His will either.
God had working amazing things our lives and the direction He has taken us. Eventhough we have made mistakes, He has turned those for good because we love Him and love others. He has a plan, we just need to love Him and our neighbor as ourselves. It doesn’t mean that we don’t have hardship or that things don’t go badly for us, but it means that we are in His will, His purpose for our lives is being played out despite ourselves. And that is a pretty sweet spot to be.
This is a great testimony, Kerry and Erin! We've traveled a lot of the same path (different stops, though). Keep looking to God for His plan, and not to the world for it's approval!