well this was certainly another week in which i was totally out of control. first of all it rained most all week which did away with my plans to paint. fortunately so, as it turned out, for my wrestling over whether or not to leave leidy church led me to finally cast a lot on the question - Lord, do You want me to leave leidy church? the answer was yes. i then drew lots on the year (2009), month (june), and day(7th) for my last sunday there. had a peace through this but once it was established all hell broke lose in my human part. the anguish of leaving my church family was intense. the fact that i face a totally unknown future in this important area. (the only church that i had thought maybe was where God might be leading me came up 'no')...so, yea... then i put a number of ways in which i could leave the church down and drew 'call everyone you know in the church immediately'. i know alot of people so it came to about 200 'units' (families, individuals). started out calling pastor john. he disagreed with the way i made the decision stating that the lot is no longer for today. he offered two books which i said i would be happy to read. then i started the hours long process of calling everyone to 1) tell them i am leaving and when and 2) to ask prayer for God's direction as to where i am to go. it has taken the better part of two days and i still have 5 or so to complete monday morning. very interesting time. fortunately i called during the day so many were not home and i could just leave the message..otherwise i would still face a long list. got some very good counsel. some reported having similar experience and it was good to hear how these turned out for them. i'm ok on the surface but it is proving very difficult leaving my 'family' of the last 8 years. to those who wanted to find out the real reason i shared that there are things that disturb me at church but that is true in every church situation and relationship...things are never perfectly like we would like them to be...but there is no 'reason' why i am leaving for i know that it will just be the same in the next place maybe with a slightly different twist. soooo this leaving business may not be real easy. i may quail and 'not be able to deal with it' and return. i have no idea. following God offers no security or certainty. we'll just see what develops. if this stark, dark leaving is indeed His leading i call upon the God who said to abram,'GO FORTH from your country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I WILL SHOW YOU... and so you shall be a blessing...'to go before and guide me in His way.
it's now monday evening and i have read the two books and studied the word 'lot' in the Bible. the first book, just do something by kevin deyoung is well written but unfortunately is written to his generation (20-30 something) who, he says, are marked by indecision. that would be the opposite for most of what i have done in life has been the result of impulsiveness...i'm on the other end of the spectrum.
he talks of 3 'wills of God'. 1. God's will of decree. this refers to things as they are and cannot be thwarted or changed by man. 2. God's will of desire. this refers to things as they ought to be and this can be disregarded by man. it is the area of God's will revealed in the Bible. these two areas are covered in deuteronomy 29.29 'the secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law'. 3.God's will of direction. we are, within the bounds of 1 and 2, free to make our own choices in this area. there is now exact path we are supposed to take, no best and second best. we are not to treat things in this area as more important than they are. he says here, 'waiting for God's direction is a mess!'
i would disagree here based upon what i get from nee who would say generally (sometimes circumstances decide for us, sometimes we use what might be called 'sanctified common sense') we are to wait for the intuition of the spirit in sensing what God wants us to do and only then move. being aware that there are many counterfeits which can seem to be of God, we are to be constantly monitoring our own thots and their source (is this my thot or did it just 'appear' in my thots from the outside - the wicked spirit). we need to be asking is this just driven by my own emotion, bent, motivation. in my my use of the lot in many cases is revealing that often my sensing about something is what 'comes up' with the lot...but not always! so i am learning a bit to begin to recognize the intuition of the spirit and how it 'works' or 'looks'. sometimes it is very different though, sometimes enough to really be very puzzling or difficult. as deyoung says, the word decide comes from the latin decidere meaning 'to cut off'. when you throw the lot, when you decide you cut off all other options! uncle hugh reported this same phenomenon and said it led him to ask God to show him and said that God taught him much in this way. i would say that it has been, in a beginning kind of way, very instructive to me also as i have gone to the God about lots i did not understand.
finally deyoung speaks of God's will of desire. 1.God guides us by His invisible providence at all times. eph. 1.11 2. God can speak to His people in many different ways, guiding them by their conscious cooperation. heb. 1.2 3. since Christ was here God has spoken to us by Christ. 4.God continues to speak to us by His Son through His spirit in the Bible in heb. 3.7 the writer quotes psalm 95 written 1000 yrs. before saying, 'the Holy Spirit SAYS'. 5. apart from the Spirit working through the scripture God does NOT promise to use any other means to guide us nor should we expect Him to. (as the author of the second book says on this point -the author of this book took the above 5 points from the second author- it is always hard to prove a negative and says, 'it may be that there is a promise in scripture we have not yet found'...an i am thinking of proverbs 16.33 -the LOT is cast into the lap, but ITS EVERY DECISION IS FROM THE LORD.
so, my thot is that nothing is said against the lot in deyoung's book. he takes the view that in the area of God's will of direction we are free to do whatever we choose within the bounds of the God's will of desire (the only area we have any choice in). he doesn't speak against lots, he doesn't mention them. so, within the scope of his opinion, i am evidently free, in the area of direction, to seek it as led by means of the lot. the second book adds nothing more, says nothing about lots.
lot is used in the old testament about 70 times, 2 in the new testament (those who tend maybe to be stronger in dispensational outlook remind me that both occur before pentecost when the church age begins...they therefore dismiss the lot as only for the nation of israel. my question to them is 'if that is true what does proverbs 16.33 mean for although all the Bible was not written to us, all was written for us'? (II tim. 3.16)
in the old testament lot signifies: 1. a portion of the land of palestine given to the 12 tribes of israel, 2. on the day of atonement it was cast to decide which of two goats was to be sacrificed and which was to be sent into the wilderness (the both symbolize God's covering (with His blood) and removal (scapegoat sent away) of sin, 3. victors cast lots in order to divide the spoil, 4. lots determined assignments such as the 24 sections of the sons of aaron who ministered in the tabernacle, the musicians who served in the temple during the time of david, the gatekeepers of the same time, the men choosen to fight against gibeah, the people who were to reside in jerusalem and those choosen to supply wood for the altar's fire during the time of nehemiah, 5. used to discover the guilty (aachan, jonah), 6. to settle disputes prov.18.18, 7. one's lot referred to one's circumstances or life, 8. in reference to one's recompense or reward.
it comes from the hebrew word goral meaning pebble and by metonymy 'lot', because small stones were used to cast lots thrown or allowed to fall in such a way as to determine a choice. six hebrew verbs are used io describe the method of such determining -the lot is said to 'come up, out, upon,for' a person or thing. not much is known though about the actual methods used. another source says that in Biblical times the lot generally recommended 'itself as a sort of appeal to the Almighty secure from all influence of passion and bias' and was esteemed by the ancients.
my research so far enables me with good conscience to use the lot, when such use seems good, to determine God's will of direction.
well this is looong enough. hope you have a good week. love, dad
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