Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The price of following God

Ever been in a situation where you know what God has told you to do...or not to do, but in the eyes of your Christian friends or leaders in your church, it was all wrong for you? Today I was reminded of a situation in the past where I was asked to perform a certain "service" in a church. I knew I wasn't supposed to do what was being asked of me, not that anything was wrong with the task itself, I just had more on my plate than I needed and one more thing was just one thing too many. I still prayed about it and really felt that God was leading me to decline the "invitation". There would be no small cost to following God's lead.

Today I was listening to a song called "Signature of Divine (Yahweh)" by the group Needtobreath. There's a line in the song that says, "Take me, and pull me through. Cause I can't move without You. I won't leave you alone, You say. You will be okay..." I was reminded that as long as I seek to follow God's lead and direction in my life He will go before me in all things. And I will be okay.

My declining that "invitation to serve" ultimately ended up with us having to leave that church. It really seemed senseless to me. Until now. Had I simply done what I knew would make a few people happy I probably would not be where I am today...And we are SO blessed by the church that God has led us too. I'm learning so much about God's grace. And I know that God does indeed cause ALL things to work together for good to those who love Him, and are called according to His purpose.

Blessings-
Brandon

3 comments:

Heather said...

Great post, Brandon. I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right - if we had simply done what we needed to do to make others happy and not rock the boat, we'd still be at that place in our lives - I'm thankful that we are not, but we are growing and learning daily ...

Love you!
~Heather

Angela said...

This post is so true! I think too many times people accept "invitations to serve" as if just being asked MUST be some devine nudge. That kind of robot-acceptance can only lead to resentment;maybe not initially and maube not even from YOU, but towards you/

It drives me NUTS that people have SO over-used the word PEACE. They say, "I have a peace about it", but what they mean is one of two things, "I can't think of any way around it that is comfortable to me." or "I really want to do it, so it must be God's plan for me." HOwever, only until you have faced a mountain with no legs under you and still managed to find your way to the other side can you attest to TRUE pace, peace that PASSES UNDERSTANDING. Once you ahve felt THAT peace, you better see, hear, and feel those TRUE nudges from the Lord. Right?

Brandon said...

Exactly Angela! have you ever had this one? "I was praying about this and your name came up..." As if that's an obvious sign that I'm supposed to do XYZ. I want to say, "If God has told you tell me this go back and tell Him He needs to tell me directly, I'm listening!" LOL!

Glad you knew what I meant by "invitation to serve" :) I guess anyone who's been in church long enough has recieved one huh?