“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.”
-Genesis 12:1
Randy’s Introduction:
My life has not progressed in the way I expected. Over the years, I’ve drawn the blueprints of several life strategies, majoring on personal strengths, moving at a solid and achievable pace, ever upward to the next level of life and beyond. I wouldn’t say that God ignored my plans. I’d just say he vetoed them for a better plan; a plan that became visible to me step by step, threat by threat, unexpected turn by unexpected turn. Lookin back, I’ve never been privy to God’s blueprint for my life. Just the next step. I think that is the way it is supposed to be.
But our religious institutions, often unintentionally, can give us a false sense of security. Intended or not, followers of Jesus can conclude that their faith journey is about attending church, giving their tithe, listening to the sermon, and applying what they can as they go through life. If you do those things, you are good to go as a Christian. For those who want to excel, you can take the next level by joining a committee, serving in an outreach program, marching publicly in a cause or you can become a member of the church staff. Now, when our churches are working right they can support and strengthen our spiritual journey. But even then they are never meant to replace seeking and finding the will of God in the everyday events of our own life.
Robert Speer was an institutional insider, holding key positions in Christian organizations most of his life. Yet, he recognized the need for every Christian to develop the habit, not just of seeking, but of finding the will of God for their lives. This was so critical that he saved it for the last habit in the last chapter of his book.
Some of his previous chapters have left us wanting more specific wisdom about building the particular habit he describes. But in this chapter, we get not one, not three, not even five, not even ten, but eleven steps we can take to habituate seeking and finding the will of God in our lives. But before we jump to those bullet points, it is important to note that these come after he emphasizes what we are actually seeking. In our day and age, we look to our particular strengths and to the proper strategies to get the most out of life. Speer urges us to start elsewhere.
To find the will of God, he tells us, we must look, not first to personal strengths and strategies, but for “the right work of God for us.” Only when we are clear on God’s plan for our life can we then look to the personal strengths we will need to use and the best strategies by which we will use them.
That being said, Speer’s view of finding the will of God is not about one grand vision that guides us for the rest of our lives to our dream destination. As Speer says, “The will of God is not a visible and material object. It is a way of the soul.” This habit, then, is a way of life that seeks God’s will moment by moment, in small responsibilities and well as in big decisions. The Habit of Finding the will of God is about discerning what God has put in front of us in the present moment and doing it.
So without further ado, Robert Speer’s final habit, Chapter fourteen, The Habit of Finding the Will of God.
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