In Search of Wisdom

The first book I ever read on discernment was The Will of God as a Way of Life: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence by Jerry Sittser. He said this about God’s will: “If we truly seek God above all, then we will always be doing the will of God, no matter where our particular choices lead us, because seeking God’s kingdom first is God’s will” (p. 39). He wrote this in a chapter appropriately titled, Our Astonishing Freedom.

There is astonishing freedom in what he says. It’s liberating to let go of the unnecessary anxiety surrounding decisions about our future. And I agree with what Sittser writes: “As it turns out, the weightiest choice we make is never between two future options –say, taking a job in California or staying in Iowa—but between two ways of life, one for God, the other against God” (p. 39).

Not long ago, a dear friend of mine was trying to decide between two good possibilities for her future. Most of her friends were assuring her in a Sittser-like way that she really couldn’t make a bad decision – that no matter what, God would bless her in her decision and so she should just make one and go with it.

I asked if this brought her comfort at all. And she said that on one level it did, but it some ways, that kind of encouragement was just frustrating and unhelpful. The fact remained: she still had a weighty decision to make.

Enter: Dallas Willard and his book, Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God. He writes, “If you wish to know what God would have you do, it is no help at all to be told that whatever comes is his will. For you are, precisely, in the position of having to decide in some measure what is to come. Does it mean that whatever you do will be God’s will? I certainly hope not” (p. 61).

Who do you agree with? What kind of commentary on God’s will has been helpful to you in your decision making?

Tags: Advice, Books, Decisions by Heidi
3 Comments »

Sometimes our problem is that we’re looking for too many legs.

According to the mentor of one Calvin Seminary student, discovering God’s call on your life is like putting legs under a stool. A stool, he says, only needs three legs.

LEG #1: An internal sense of calling.

LEG #2: Affirmation of this calling through wise people who know you well.

LEG #3: Experiences that confirm this calling.

Once you’ve got three legs for your stool, all you need to do is sit on it. Don’t look for more legs, said the wise old pastor. You’ve got three. That’s enough.

Are you looking for more legs? Do you agree that three legs are enough? Is this advice too simple? Or is it just simple enough?

Tags: Advice, Call to Ministry, Mentors by Heidi
4 Comments »

Thomas Merton collected several sayings from the desert fathers. Here is a saying/story I came across last week. As you read it, I ask you the question: How are insults a path to wisdom?

Once there was a disciple of a Greek philosopher who was commanded by his Master for three years to give money to everyone who insulted him. When this period of trial was over, the Master said to him: “Now you can go to Athens and learn wisdom.” When the disciple was entering Athens he met a certain wise man who sat at the gate insulting everybody who came and went. He also insulted the disciple who immediately burst out laughing. “Why do you laugh when I insult you?” said the wise man. “Because,” said the disciple, “for three years I have been paying for this kind of thing and now you give it to me for nothing.” “Enter the city,” said the wise man, “it is all yours.” Abbot John used to tell the above story saying: “This is the door of God by which our fathers rejoicing in many tribulations enter into the City of Heaven.”

So… how are insults a path to wisdom? Are they? So often we think of God speaking to us through people – and usually, I think , it is in their words of encouragement that we hear God’s voice. I don’t believe that God is in the insult-business, but might God shape us through insult and criticism? Or is it only in spite of these things that we grow in wisdom?

Tags: Advice, Books by Heidi
3 Comments »

“I am God’s Project.” This was the title of one of my siblings and my favorite cassette tapes when I was a little . We referred to it lovingly as ‘the yellow tape.’ My mom told me that she just saw that tape out the other day in my dad’s study! One of our favorite songs on the tape was Bloom Where You’re Planted. My sister and I even sang the song in church for ‘special music’ one Sunday. The words have become so much a part of me that, 20 years later, they were readily available at the hospital bedside of a woman I ministered to as a student chaplain a few summers ago. I still remember the words now:

Bloom where you’re planted;
Show what you’re worth.
God has his flowers all over the earth.
Bloom where you’re planted and if you’re sincere,
You can get anywhere on earth from here.

Bloom where you’re planted
And become a part
Of God’s lovely garden – the pride of his heart.
Bloom where you’re planted and if you’re sincere,
You can get anywhere on earth from here.

Bloom where you’re planted. What does this mean?

I’ve been meeting with a woman in her early fifties. She is sensing that God might be calling her to seminary. She’s had conversations with a few people and some have encouraged her to ‘bloom where she’s planted.’

She thought she’d come to some peace about staying right where she’s at – following God’s will in the little things of life and ministering quietly by writing prayer newsletters, mentoring a woman, and correcting Bible lessons for a prison ministry.

But then, one evening, she read Romans 10 as a part of her daily devotional and her eye fell on these verses:

“‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!’”

She can’t shake her sense that God is calling her to preach. And so she continues to wonder. Is God calling her to stay in one garden, or to move to another?

What are your thoughts about blooming where one is planted? Your questions? Your experiences?

Tags: Advice, Someone's Story by Heidi
6 Comments »