"Janelle, please pray with me!" My dear friend Sonya* (not hear real name) closed her story with this desperate plea. I held the phone to my ear, taking in ever word of her circumstance. Sonya is a faithful servant of the Lord, and a close friend of mine. But she is in a desperate situation, where, if God doesn't intervene, she is in some serious trouble that can alter the trajectory of her life (through no fault of her own). And so we prayed, as Christians in desperation, Christians in trouble, Christians needing an answer, have done through the ages. We petitioned the Almighty on Sonya's behalf. But I am in deep trouble. Rush to my aid, for only you can help and save me. O Lord, don’t delay. (Psalm 70:5, TLB).
Sonya is at the bottom of the barrel. Have you been there? I have. In fact, there was a time when I was in that kind of desperation, and only God could help--and He did. There's something about being in a position where we're more dependent on God. Hearing Sonya's harrowing plight reminded me of a long-ago challenge another friend unwittingly gave me.
I was given a challenge as a very young woman (about twenty years old). Like Sonya today, I, too was at the bottom of the barrel. The person giving me this challenge was someone I considered one of my best friends at the time, and she didn't realize she was giving me a challenge at all, especially not one that would become a lifelong quest and obsession. The conversation with Sonya this week has reignited my passion for this challenge.
My friend wasn't trying to challenge me all those years ago. She was faced with a decision, and when sharing with me the logic behind the choice she ended up making, she unknowingly called into question everything I was basing my life upon, and I had to wrestle, and live by faith that I was doing what God had called me to do, waiting years before seeing the fruition. Until that time, the only confirmation was the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit urging me onward.
This long ago friend and I had both made some difficult choices, acting in faith to what we truly believed God led us to do. These hard choices we made brought us closer for a time. Only for a time. These choices we made weren't a matter of sinning or not sinning . It was a matter of specifically obeying God's leading in our lives. That's where things get hard.
There are obvious things that are sins, and we should always avoid sin. If I am faced with the choice of murdering someone or forgiving them, it's kind of a no-brainer, right? Even if forgiveness over murder is hard to carry out, it is an obvious answer. But not all decisions are that apparent. Some things are not defined in the Bible as sin, but they are different than how God is guiding you or me specifically, and would be sin for us in those cases. An example is Jonah. God clearly led him to go to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1), and he instead fled from that calling and headed on a boat to Tarshish (Jonah 1:2). Getting on a boat is not sinful. Going to Tarshish is not sinful. Jonah could have justified his actions by pointing out the lack of sinfulness in these things. And yet he did sin, in that he ran from God's specific directions for him. He faced God's discipline, mercy, and a second chance. That's another story. But my point is, Jonah did sin by disobeying God's specific directions for him, even though the things he technically did couldn't be defined in the scriptures as sins.
Jumping from Jonah back to my friend and me as young college girls, this friend ended up going back on her decision and going in the other direction. Just as our choices had brought us close for a while, her going back on it effectively ended our friendship shortly thereafter. I was left to question and wrestle with the implications this left me with. I sought God in His word and in prayer. I listened to godly leaders I trusted. But mostly, I clung to the Lord, wanting His presence primarily and His will for me secondarily.
God leads us individually. Sometimes we try to follow God's leading, and then realize He is leading differently than we thought. But in this friend's case, she didn't say any of this. She basically said that there was no verse in the Bible that condemned what she wanted to do, and that God doesn't really have callings in our lives, and we can do whatever we want, as long as there isn't a verse defining it as sinful.
This teaching deeply troubled me when she said it (she was given bad advice by a mentor of hers), and I have heard this belief perpetuated over the years. A pastor I greatly admire and otherwise agree with, Andrew Farley, preaches this in his book Twisted Scripture. I love and agree with most of the points he makes in that book, but I disagreed with the implication that believers don't need to seek God when making decisions (such as what job to take, where to move, whom to marry, etc.) because God will meet them on the other side of whatever choice they make (I addressed this in two blog posts Under Grace, May 27, 2019, and Where there's a Will... June 1, 2019). A more recent book I read, Becoming Free Indeed, by Jinger Duggar Vuolo, also promotes this teaching. I reviewed that book in this blog on January 31, 2023, if you want to check it out. I hear this message from others as well, and it is a problem for me. I wrestled with it for years as a young woman. A lot of my Christian colleagues at the time seemed to press this, and it was so contrary to what I saw in the Bible, as well as what I was seeing God do in my life (of course, I wanted to line my life up with the Bible--it was the model, my life was not).
What a lot of these people do is live by the Bible, which is a good thing, but they focus so much on technically obeying the commands in the Bible that they miss out on knowing the God of the Bible. Obeying God's word is good, please don't misunderstand me. But if one's entire walk of faith is just avoiding sin, that's a pretty one-dimensional way to live the Christian life. There is so much richness in pressing into God, crying out to Him, hearing His voice, and obeying, then seeing the results of your obedience. God is not an impersonal force, like on Star Wars. God is real. He wants a relationship with the people He created. He went to great lengths to have that relationship made possible. He longs to envelop people in His love.
We make many decisions. How detailed is God in these decisions? How deeply should we analyze? Should you seek the Lord on whether to go to McDonalds or Burger King? How about on whether to stop at the post office or the grocery store first in your errands? To be honest, I don't usually pray about those things, but I do believe God is still at work guiding me when I don't even know it. There have been times I chose to do a certain errand before another, and then avoided a car accident. Other times, I've chosen one restaurant over another, and got to witness to a waitress God brought my way. That is God at work. Even so, I don't agonizingly seek God's will in those nitty gritty decisions. I just live life in faith, knowing He is working. But once things start getting bigger than that, I do start really seeking God's will. The most major life decision (besides salvation) where I sought God with all my heart and soul was marriage, but I have done so in other things too, such as finding the right job, joining the church God was leading me to, and living where I was supposed to live. God cares about those things, and He wants me to be surrendered to His Lordship in them. Besides, these things are all gifts, and Every good and perfect gift is from above... (James 1:17). When I have tried on my own, without God's guidance, I flopped (Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. (Proverbs 3:5-6). There are so many biblical examples of people seeking and waiting on the Lord, and acting on the faith they had in Him. One of my favorites in Elijah. The main bulk of his story (where you can see him wrestling with faith, but still obeying and having victories) can be found in First Kings 17-19 (although he makes a few more appearances, finally exiting the scene in Second Kings 2). Elijah is one of so many who sought the Lord and waiting on Him in faith. Why would we think we can just go through life making choices without God's help?
I find that it isn't until I'm at the bottom of the barrel, like Sonya, that I realize how important this teaching is, that God is actively involved in our lives, and has a specific will for us, and we need Him so desperately. Everyone I have ever known who claimed we could just do what we wanted as long as it wasn't sin had it pretty easy when they said it. None of them were seeking God with all their hearts. None of them were depending on Him to make it through the day. None were poor in spirit or heartbroken. None were hungering or thirsting after God. They weren't depending on God so greatly that, were He not to come through, all would be lost. They weren't mourning their brokenness and experiencing His comfort. In other words, God wasn't their everything. These people appear to want to direct their own paths. In the case of my long ago friend, I believe (though I can't know, since I'm not her, nor am I accountable for her choices) that it was the easy way out, to do what she really wanted to do anyway. The saying is true, you don't know God is all you need until God is all you've got. When I was bottom of the barrel, God was all I had, and He led me to rich fulfillment, and I believe He is doing the same for Sonya. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me. (Psalm 50:15). you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. (Psalm 66:12). Being at the bottom of the barrel is a gift, because it brings us closer to Jesus. We share in His sufferings, and we learn to know Him in ways the comfortable never can. And when God pulls us out of the pit, even when we are joyful and comfortable again, we never forget the lessons we learned at the bottom, and we carry them with us, additions to who we are. The greatest thing Sonya and I have learned is that we need God's leadership in our lives, because there is no way without Him!
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