Wrestle With God

Well, it's been a long quiet month - just haven't had much to say since before Christmas. There was a preaching professor at Southwestern Seminary (where I attended) that regularly told his preaching class, "Have something to say, say it, and sit down." Now that's great advice. So, for those of you who had almost given up on me as a blogger...I just didn't have anything significant to say and I'm not inclined to blog about junk, meaningless dribble.

This past Sunday night, I taught on abortion at GS. It was a tough message, lots of material to cover, difficult topic. I did get a lot of positive response, people grateful to finally be hearing information from the church on a difficult issue. It was all good, but here was the difficult part for me: after I laid out all that info, after I talked about what's going on in our society and looked at what Scripture says, I felt like people were overwhelmed. When I stood facing the crowd at the end of the sermon and their eyes were on me, it was as if their eyes said, "This is horrible...I never realized...what to do we do?"

In that momemnt, I had no answer. There are many things to be done about many issues that plague our culture. The church needs to have awareness and the willingness to step up to the plate, but a pastor really can't tell every individual what to do. I have to admit, I was a little despairing myself when I looked at the people I dearly love and said, "I don't know what to tell you. You just need to take this information home and wrestle with the Lord over it."

It felt like a dumb answer, no help, but as I left that night, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was exactly right. Every believer needs to personally wrestle with the truth. Every believer needs to get before the Lord and ask what He would have them do. Every believer is a priest and has the same access, same opportunity to hear from God personally about what they specifically are called to do.

I can give suggestions; I can prime the pump, but I can't lay out the game plan for anyone. I think having to wrestle with God is a good thing. In fact, those believers who still are on milk when they should be eating meat have been done a disservice by the church because they've never been allowed to wrestle. At some point the baby/child has to begin making his own decisions, taking responsibility, learning from consequences. I am grateful for the insight I received Sunday about being careful not to play God, telling people what they should do in every matter.

Well, all this rambling boils down to this: whether it is an issue such as abortion and what believers should do or just day to day decisions that affect your walk with God, are you willing to wrestle with Him and to spend time before Him or are you just looking for an easy, quick answer?

God, help me to not look for the easy solution, the path that takes no time and effort. Teach me and guide me as I wrestle with you, as I take the time and effort to seek you out.