Faith

What is God showing you, speaking to you, or calling you to do?

Comments

[Chris Stewart]

I posted these little questions to solicit response. LOL. Maybe no one is reading this week.

I suppose there are four primary reasons for no repsonses:

(1) No one has read the blog.

(2) Some people have read, but do not choose to post for one reason or another, which is okay.

(3) Some have read, but do not have an answer to the questions for one reason or another.

(4) Some read it once, but would like to avoid such questions because with questions such as those come feelings of guilt and conviction.

[Peg]

Well, Chris, maybe you need to rephrase the question. I was waiting for you to answer those questions like you do so many times, lazy me.

God has shown me how great His love is for me, simply by letting me live another day to try my best to do what He knows is best for me not want I think is best. And that's not so easy, nobody likes to be told what to do but God gentley persuades me. He knows sometimes I look down when I should be looking up.

God speaks to me everyday. In my devotions the other day, the comment was "If God didn't speak me awake, it wouldn't matter how many alarm clocks I had, I could not get out of bed." Isn't it glorious just knowing he does that for all of us? Now that may seem minor to some, but without Him starting our day for us, well there just wouldn't be a day. He speaks to me in other ways too, tells me to mind my manners, be careful what comes out of my mouth (viscious tool sometimes), be nice and a gazillion other ways. He speaks to me through His word, I don't necessarily always like what He says to me but He's always right. Sometimes I forget He gets the glory and not me and how great I feel when I give Him that glory because He gives it right back to me.

Now about my calling or should I say His calling for me? I'm sure God has something splendiforous for me (silly me, anything you do for God's glory would have to be splendiforous). I feel like if He has a specific calling for me and is calling me, I'm can't hear Him and moreover, I am probably not listening, or waiting to hear what I want to hear. And that's all I have to say about that.

[Amy Hoffman]

I had a great post, and then poof! it was gone. I will have to re-post later.

[smiles]

It's been a looooong while since I've been able post on this blog. Life has been full, but absolutely glorious... not necessarily all feely goody, but definitely beautiful in the eyes of God, and eventually mine, too. One thing is that I've been missing the "sit-down-and-write-to-Oasis" time, that's for sure!

Chris, you didn't ask easy, shallow questions. I encourage you to praise God for the fact that people aren't responding to these so quickly, because they are questions we don't ask ourselves everyday, and they ought to be thought over deeply before they're answered... at least that was how God worked in me with this post of your's.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a big praise with you folks. I've been leading God's people in our musical worship for a year and a half now, at Sunny Brae Church, out here in Arcata, CA. The first 6 months I was covering for our lead worshiper, who was on sabbatical. By the end of that time, it was revealed that God was moving his family to another town. For the last year, I've been technically, not relationally, the "interim worship leader" at Sunny Brae. (Relationally, I'm just smiles, and the people honor me as a brother way more than any position could be exalted. I praise God for their intense love.)

For the first year, I all but hated this task that God had entrusted me with. My only joy in it was that I knew it was God who had brought me to this place, and that I was the man for the job, at least until He provides someone else. I was not good at leading the other musicians that God has provided. I was not easy to follow, if you were singing in the congregation. I was not creative in my leading. I just could not bless God's people like I had wished to.

I spent a lot of time on my face, and shed a lot of painful tears (both selfish and selfless) during that year. The body was fully aware of where I was at, and they were all praying for me, and appreciative of my faithful service to them and to God. Even so, it hurt a lot! This may sound stupid, especially for those of you who enjoy leading in musical worship, but it was a very real desert valley that God was bringing me through.

I say "was" because it has been a whole different story in the last 6ish months! God has hooked me up with the joy I've prayed for, the increasing skill, growing motivation and creativity I've prayed for, and the assurance that I'm being a huge blessing to God's people through my leading. It has become a blessing and not a burden to all of us, increasingly so, week by week!

Most of the family doesn't know it yet, but I am going to reveal to them at our next family business meeting, on Jan 28th, that I am God's provision for the Church, as His answer to their prayers for a new worship leader. I believe this is a commitment that God wants me to make to Him and to the body, and that it is part my journey that God has me on, as I am pursuing the call to preach the Word in Athens one day (probably a handful of years down the road).

This is really a huge thing for me, my family and my local Church family. I have no clue as to what impact it will have on ministry life in Athens, either mine or yours, but, given that it's an issue of obedience, I'm sure our Lord has some awesome, sovereign purpose for making things work out this way. Since you are my family, I wanted to share this praise with you, and I hope that you all would rejoice with me and pray for me/us, as I venture into territory that I never thought I'd venture into before.

Thank you, Oasis. I love you and pray for you, both individually and as one body. I trust that God will bring to completion the good work that He has began in all of us. His name is Faithful and True. Let's follow Jesus in full surrender, whatever and wherever He's calling us to. Be blessed, family.

smiles

[chad]

Restructuring...that is what God is doing most with me now. The last six months of my life have been a time of dramatic spiritual change. I'm not trying to sound "new age" when I say this but I suppose it will sound that way once it's spoken: I set out on a journey a few months ago to engage in God's word in a fashion that I had never previously done. The end result of that journey, for lack of a less cheesy term, has been a total reversal of thought. Without going into a long, 7 page response, God has shown me 2 things with disturbing clarity.

(1) God is deficient in no area of His sovereignty. He chooses, shapes, and defines the course of His will. He is not dictated to by human beings and the only things of signifigance in this life are those things that glorify God's name and reveal his unyielding righteousness.

(2) God demands much of us. Most Christians have it wrong in America. If you listen to certain televangelists you'll quickly find a heretical message being spread and embraced. This message is called "The Prosperity Gospel". You may not find it called exactly that but that's precisely what it is. The prosperity gospel says that if you just have enough faith you won't get the flu, lose your hair, have your car stolen, die of cancer, become obese, or miss out on that big promotion at work. The prosperity gospel is helping people love prosperity, not Jesus, and it is that very fact that makes it a heretical message. James calls such people adulterous against God because they want things only to spend on their own passions. This is not how God operates but sadly many Christians are embracing a theology of God that says God is here to serve your best interests. NO HE IS NOT!! Yes God has extended grace to us through Jesus. Yes God has done much for us, namely spared us from what we really deserve from Him, but it is not so that we could learn to love self indulgent rewards. Our whole lives are to be used to the chief end of doing God's desires. Our greatest joys should be only in God. Our lives must be lived in surrender to Him with humility and our worship must be filled with a profound desire to see only His glory and righteousness revealed in the entirety of His creation. This is not an easy call. If more people truly knew the depth and scope of what God's word actually says about serving God you would probably see an unnerving decline in church attendance across America. Many Christians only want the God that doesn't ask that much from their lives and you can find that God being taught and worshipped in Christian churches all across America. But that god is not THE GOD that the Bible teaches. I say this with all the love that my heart can muster towards any that are reading this. I used to be one of these apathetic Christians who was content to serve the notion of a God rather than the reality of the glorious God that Bible is teaching me how to honor properly. Inside of these lessons has been the towering sovereignty of God and the ever increasing realization that I must continue, daily, to die to myself and become completely alive to God.

These two lessons are coloring everything about my life lately. My perspective on the future has totally shifted. I believe that one day I will be involved some way, somehow, in a full time worship ministry position. God has put this desire on my heart and I believe he is carving the path for that. Others that I know feel this day is coming as well. They say that their hearts are also convicted that this is where God will land me some time in the not too distant future. I can't define the time frame but God seems to be telling me that perhaps it's closer than I might expect.

God is welling up in me a desire to teach his word. I don't think that preaching is my gift but I do believe that God has bestowed His grace upon myself and several others in the body of Oasis to teach in varying capacities and ministries within the body.

In songwriting God has slowed me down yet again as he restructures my sense of Him as King. He seems to do this about every six or seven months. When I come out of it I usually have a burst of songwriting. I don't feel like that is on the near horizon because I'm aware that God is really taking His time with me during this particular change. And it's been wonderful to just marinade in the things that God has been showing me about his authority and his choice.

[Garrett]

Hi, I'm a good friend of Smiles out here in Arcata, CA. It seems God has prepared the two of us to work well together. God has filled our relationship with so much blessing and it's our hope that as we pursue Him He will continue to use our relationship to be a blessing. I don't think either of us knows much about what that means for Athens or Smiles' call to minister there. I think we both hope it means God will use us both out there someday.

Since I found Oasis on iTunes, I think it was back in the beginning of '06, or maybe earlier, I've listened to your sermons and songs. I haven't spent much time on the site though. I've wanted to poke my head in for a long time all the same. So here goes.

What God has been showing me...

Have you ever noticed how when you've treated someone badly it creates a weird feeling in the relationship. Maybe the feeling could be called alienation. It's hard to just enjoy a normal conversation afterward. Somehow, the depth of relationship is damaged. Sometimes the closeness that's lost is tremendous sometimes it's not. Sometimes it takes a while to heal, sometimes it can't be completely healed at all. I hope everyone knows the feeling I'm talking about or the rest of this won't make much sense.

Anyhow, I realized lately that this happens for a reason I'd never thought of. In part, it happens so that we can understand God better and our relationship to Him. Sin alienates our heart from God in the same way it alienates us from others. I think the biblical language for this is hardness of heart. Sin hardens our heart toward God. I think I already knew that, but it never sank in before the way it did lately when I realized how sin affected all my other relationships. I was able to feel the way my heart is dulled to God by sin as I was thinking of how I felt toward other folks when their sin or mine wounded our ability to enjoy one another.

I think we're supposed to learn about what we're doing to our relationship with God when we sin, and in part we're supposed to learn it from all of the hurts, offenses, tensions and sins we give and receive in this world, and the affect that all of this has on our intimacy with one another. I'm not in a position to know yet, but I think when I'm married I'll get to learn this lesson even better.

In the mean time this thought has helped me a lot to let go of sin. I can remember those times when I was most deeply enjoying intimacy with God. Knowing that sinning keeps me from that enjoyment by damaging my ability to enjoy divine intimacy has made sinning much less attractive to me lately. Recently my prayer in the midst of temptation has frequently been, "God, I want You so much more than I want sin." If there is one thing God is faithful to do, it is to give Himself to His people.

I've really been enjoying all of this very much the last few days. I hope I said it all here in a way that makes sense to folks. Sometimes when I have a cool thought I don't always do the best job of explaining it very well.

Anyhow, this is what God's been teaching me.

I want all of you to know that I've been praying for Oasis for a long time. It's funny, I think we all know people that we love but don't really like. You guys are people I love but don't really know. :)

I hope my post is a blessing. Sorry it's so long. Good question Chris.

Garrett