Thy Will Be Done

Last Monday I mentioned last Sunday's sermon installment on The Lord's Prayer about Matthew 6:10

Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done

Monday I wrote more about His Kingdom and then today it registered that last night's post was influenced by the "Thy Will Be Done" portion of the prayer. The God's Will portion of that sermon listed these descriptions:

1. It is for all people everywhere
2. It is to be obeyed (or done by us)
3. When we do it, it is His Kingdom in action
4. It is to be done constantly, consistently, pursued as if all depends on it
5. Done cheerfully. If we do not willingly do His Will, His Kingdom and thus His Will will not come. 

So me "doing God's will" is not as much about "a call" as I used to think but more about obedience, following Jesus, being Christ-like.

Then in Sunday school today I was reminded that throughout the Bible God/Jesus tells me how to behave, relate to others, live my life wherever I am and whatever I'm doing. I need to be doing God's will (obey Him) in the particular life I live today in Nashville, Tennessee and then when I move to Costa Rica I am to continue to do God's will (obey Him), though related to different people, different culture, and different activities. I see new and exciting possibilities for an incarnational ministry in Cost Rica as I had in The Gambia, while continuing my love of nature and conservation education as part of His Will. Neighbors, friends and acquaintances will know I am a Christian by my love while becoming part of some local Christian fellowship will help me follow Christ and hopefully I will eventually contribute to their relationship to God as I found with Glory Baptist in The Gambia. The unknown there is an exciting part of the spiritual adventure and again where I trust God to lead the way and provide those providential encounters He always has in my life. Wow! I can hardly wait to get there and see what He has waiting for me! 

Weak and Wise

The devotionals I've read for the last two nights bring up an interesting contrast that appears to be a contradiction, yet in such confusion God seems to work and that is what I'm expecting from Him right now. Thursday night the Scripture verse was 2 Corinthians 12:9, HCSB,

But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.

This is a promise I have claimed many times in my weaknesses and sometimes foolishness. It means I trust Him more than myself and in so doing things tend to go much better! In other words, I seek his will and try to follow it. Then the next night I get this verse, Ephesians 5:17, HCSB, 

 So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.

Wow! They do go together, even though some translations talk about wisdom in the second passage and that is not how I feel when I feel weak. Telling me to understand what the Lord's will is seems lacking when that is what I want, but not always sure what His will is. So I just trust Him and wait to see what happens as I try to be like Jesus in all my relationships and praise God in nature and adventure. As Henry David Thoreau said, "My profession is to always find God in nature." And that will be one of my purposes in Costa Rica!

Even though I continue to make lists and try to plan out all the details for the move to Costa Rica, as I did with the pros and cons of the decision, I still feel weak at times and pray that I am doing His will and he will renew my desire to serve him in a new land with new people. opportunities and challenges. And that is what I'm expecting as I let Him turn my weakness to wisdom, because I depend on Him more than all my planning and preparation. Wow! It's about to happen! I'm excited and enthusiasm is from God! 

Where Am I Spiritually?

Sometimes I don't know. Going to church now-a-days I often feel like a third thumb, not really a part of things beyond being a greeter and usher which younger people are generally not interested in. This empty-nest mid-life church crises for older people is very well described in this online Christianity Today article:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september/midlife-church-crisis.html?utm_source=ctweekly-html&utm_medium=Newsletter&utm_term=12017377&utm_content=299016903&utm_campaign=2013

All of the above makes me so much more open to a totally new spiritual adventure if I move to Costa Rica. Who knows what kind of church or fellowship or channels of service? And my love of nature and how it puts me right beside God in so many ways was partially spoken to by my favorite newspaper religion writer, Ray Waddle, in today's Tennessean:


Earth saves room for human delights

For The Tennessean

Last week in Montana, my wife and friends and I encountered three grizzly bears walking across our narrow trail, hardly 40 feet away. My group was naturally thrilled. I naturally worried: We could be killed. It was a mother grizz and two cubs. The scene would turn bad if mama bear felt threatened.

Human domination of nature suddenly meant nothing. We were at the bear’s mercy. But she had other things on her mind — raising a family, getting home. We weren’t worth a second thought. She disappeared with her cubs into the brush without a trace, ignoring our cameras and good intentions.

Immersion in a mountainous wilderness (in this case, Glacier National Park) reveals the silent prehistoric earth as it was before human commentary, sacred texts or gasoline. Out there, it’s hard to see how we fit in, except as disrupters.

Scripture says we were made to rule over Earth’s creatures. So we assume we came along early enough to name everything and organize the place, and it’s been our plantation ever since.

Yet science (for the moment) says the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and homo sapiens are maybe 200,000 years old, and we got civilized (started writing) about 5,000 years ago. Which means we arrived late to the banquet. How did God get along without us for 4 billion years? Did God put us on the map only recently because there’s no way we could inhabit the planet for billions of years without destroying it? That’s my guess.

The secret complaint against evolutionary science, I suspect, is not the science but the insult to human ego that a Creator could manage for so long without our companionship. Seen from geologic time, God’s intentions are a bottomless enigma. Yet a miracle abides: our capacity for the poetry of belief, words knitted together against time and chaos in order to bring us closer to the divine spirit. This gift is laid at our doorstep every morning in the golden sunrise.

On this trip I read poet William Stafford, whose verse suggests nature is always watching and waiting, ready to reveal its mind, its balanced economy, its implacable will, its majestic creatures. “The slow current of the life below tugs at me all day,” he once wrote. “When I dream at night, they save a place for me.”

Fierce and patient Earth saves room for human delights — a Tennessee stream, a Kansas plain, a Connecticut autumn, a Montana bear and her cubs, watched from a safe distance.

Columnist Ray Waddle is a former Tennessean religion editor and author of a new book, “ Undistorted God” (Abingdon Press). Reach him at ray@raywaddle.com.

Is God Laughing at Me?

Yesterday I wrote in my Costa Rica Decision Blog about a quote I liked from one of the many books I'm reading on the country: "If you want to hear God laugh, tell Him your plans."  said Iyanla Vanzant. The expat, Bob Normand, who quoted that had seen most of his plans fail or turn out differently than he planned. That is certainly possible for me too, though I am doing more research than that guy did before actually moving.

I'm doing my "due diligence" (as another expat proclaims) or serious research on Costa Rica as a retirement place before the August 23 trip to be truly prepared for making a decision sometime after the trip. I believe this is the wise way to go about it, even if a crazy idea! Then the above quote sort of slaps me in the face and I wonder, "What am I doing? Is God already laughing at my plans?" Well, first, I have no definite plans yet. Though I'm sure He is at least smiling, and also believe He loves to see me enthusiastic about anything whether it works out or not. I think that was the case when I worked so hard and enthusiastically to get First Baptist involved in ongoing volunteer mission work in The Gambia and the church just didn't respond. I moved on with life and got over the disappointment.

As written in both blogs, I've already asked God for His direction in this path (Prov. 3:5-6). And I consider "His will" most important for me and my life, though it's not exactly like considering that call to missions in The Gambia. As a follower of Christ I try to "acknowledge him in all my ways," which really does not change if I live somewhere else. In essence I can be in "God's will" anywhere I live and in anything I choose to do with my life. I live by faith here in Tennessee and would if  in Costa Rica.

This decision is about how I spend the last chapter of my life. It could end up being something I haven't even imagined yet. Where I'm seeing adventure, God may be seeing ministry. Where I see myself photographing the beautiful tropics and its wildlife, God may be seeing me as a special helper in a little church or some other ministry I don't know about yet. God loves to surprise! (See Ephesians 3:20-21, The Message)

So, I'm admitting that God may not give me clear directions to "Go to Costa Rica" or "Stay in Tennessee." I think I'm going to have to make this decision day by day while living in "His Spirit" as this blog proclaims. That reminds me of Jesus' words in Matthew 6:34,

So don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time.

Is seeking adventure (a big part of my Costa Rica thing) selfish and foolish? I don't think so, but I'm also not sure. No decision until after the trip and even then it will still be a day by day following of Jesus. Your prayers for me are appreciated! 

Learning from a Prophet

I just perused my notes from last Sunday's sermon title "A Lesson from Someone Else's Mistakes" based on 1 Kings 20:1-43. Here are the three points I wrote down to remember:
1. God knows our problems
2. Be careful what you boast of (don't count your chickens before they hatch)
3. God's in control of both your hills and your valleys
4. Success or failure are not indications of right or wrong
5. God brings glory to Himself, not me or us
6. God's in charge
7. There is always a consequence to disobedience; the more you disobey the worse things get

This was NOT Pastor Frank's outline, but seven things I wrote down for my own life and especially as I am now considering a really big decision to move to Costa Rica. It has been tempting to boast about the advantages of living there even before I go in the "Live In Costa Rica Tour," and certainly before I have received peace that this is what God wants me to do. Pray that I find God's will and not make a mistake. I'm regularly discussing it in my Costa Rica Decision Process Blog.  "God, help me to learn from Ahab's mistakes!"

This Is the Way; Walk In It.

The Vacation Bible School theme for next year was announced with the memory verse and although the HCSB will be used and almost the same, I decided I like the NIV a little better and may be using it as a personal motto for awhile as I go through a potentially life-changing decision to move to Costa Rica or not: 

Isaiah 30:21

New International Version (NIV)

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

I wrote it down at the end of this year's VBS but didn't look at it until just now, the afternoon after a worship service at First Baptist Nashville that also spoke to me about my decision-making process. Pastor Frank looked at how God cared for Elijah in his depression in I Kings 19:1-10. God told him to rest and eat and He would lead Elijah in what to do next. That is what I am trying to do with an idea that will seem crazy or impractical to some, but is following my heart. So,

God, I'm resting and eating and waiting for some indication about what you want me to do with such a life-altering decision. So tell me God if "This is the way; walk in it." 

Follow my decision-making process on another blog Costa Rica Decision Process 

Now the surprise for me in worship this morning was the congregational singing of a hymn I had never heard before (Thanks to Mark Edwards!) titled "Sometimes A Light Surprises" by William Cowper in the 1700's and it too spoke to me in my new time of big decision-making. The lyrics: 

Sometimes a light surprises, The Christian while he sings 

It is the Lord who rises, with healing in His wings

When comforts are declining, He grants the soul again

A season of clear shining, to cheer is after rain

In holy contemplation, we sweetly then pursue

The theme of God’s salvation, and find it ever new

Set free from present sorrow, we cheerfully can say

Let the unknown tomorrow, Bring with it what it may

Tomorrow can bring us nothing, But He will bear us through

Who gives the lilies clothing, Will clothe His people too

Beneath the spreading heavens, No creature but is fed

And He who feeds the ravens, Will give His children bread

Though vine nor fig-tree neither,

Their wonted fruit should bear

Though all the fields should wither,

Nor flocks or herds be there

Yet God the same abiding, His praise shall tune my voice

For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice!

For while in Him confiding, I cannot but rejoice!

Read more at http://www.songlyrics.com/caedmon-s-call/sometimes-a-light-surprises-lyrics/#kWZO0XkztRrpxjSQ.99