Then just do whatever you want

So how does God talk to you?  And lead you?

Well, here’s how he talks to me.

I’m thinking about some things that affect now and the future, things that I would have to start doing now, and as usual, the (my) tendency is to go, “Oh, that’s just me.”  And when you want to follow Jesus you don’t want it to be just you.  So you don’t go full blast because you’re afraid you’ll just be carrying out your own agenda.  Some people don’t struggle with that, some do.  I do.  (HERE'S another part of what’s happening in this.)

So this morning I read in one of my little devotionals about keeping a oneness with God and I’m reminded of that being a major idea in the Bible.  And oneness is not some big, mysterious thing.  I know what it looks like in my relationship with my wife – stay close in spirit with her; enjoy her; please her; don’t grieve her; don’t do or think anything with her or away from her that would hinder intimacy with her; and when you mess up, fix it now.

Then in another little devotional I read about how Jesus says “I am with you.”  And I’m reminded of that being in the Bible, too, and that no matter what I do or how I feel or what I think, he is with me and will never leave.  I wander from him; he never does from me.  And this “I am with you” person is the creator of the universe and lover of my soul, so this is a big deal.

Then I read Psalm 91 (these little readings are part of my normal routine) – “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”  And I’m supposed to make God “my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust” and when I do, and dwell there, he protects and delivers. 

Psalm 91 says he’s all over everything that happens.  Not because you make a ‘perfect’ decision and not because you know the center of his will in some circumstance, but “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him.”  It’s because you have made the Lord your dwelling place.

And I remember hearing one time a simple way to have confidence: Take care of your personal relationship with God and then just do whatever you want.  If you are one with him, trusting him, intimate with him, you’re not going to go crazy.  You don’t have to be oppressed by the question “Is this God’s will?”  His will is molding your will.

You’re not going to get a Fed Ex letter with his explicit instructions and plan.  Because it’s not about that, it’s first about him and you.  And he remembers that you are dust, so you got a lot of mercy there.

One way to think of things is that God has an absolute perfect will and ‘right’ decision in every single thing and you can miss it and mess it up.  That’s a lot of pressure on you.

Or maybe there’s a realm of ‘right’ choices within the intimacy of your relationship with him, and when you trust and are desiring to please him he makes right the way you go.  And that’s his perfect will.