Kathy,

See that is the problem. As fickle as we humans are, we tend to rely on
emotional satisfaction. This shown true to an extreme by entire doctrines
birthed out of that selfish desire. I think our desire to want to do more
can be of two motivations. One being a pride... "See God! Look what I'm
doing for you!" or the Humble... "God, I love you so much, I want to do
more for you, use me, fill me, lead me, and guide me". I think we'd all be
much more at ease with a holy knock on the noggin and a voice saying...
"Greg and Kathy? I want you to return home to Michigan and lead my flock
there". Or perhaps "Greg and Kathy, I've called you to Maine and that is
your life's assignment for me". Sometimes we really do not want the truth,
we want what we want. Our pastor mentioned a statement in the wake of a
tragedy. We always want to know why. Why Lord did this happen? The truth is
we do not really want to know why because if we knew why, we'd still be
unhappy and troubled. What we want is it fixed. And fixed according to our
desire, our satisfaction. Jonah, being called of God to go to Nineveh heard
from god and took off the other direction. I mean that was premeditated
"Toss that idea God, I'm outa here!" Then once he was forced, he went and
still sulked about it after the impact on that city. He was not satisfied.
I mean wouldn't you or I be elated to have heard from God in the first
place. Would we  have the guts then to argue and disobey God and then have
our shipmates toss us over cause we were in disobedience, write our self
off as being history, swallowed by a fish, come to our grateful senses, get
spit out on land, go to a city, preach and the entire place comes to god,
and then in the end be mad at god for saving them? Can we then blame god
for making us the humans we are? No cause we're back to the clay telling
the potter what to do. Human nature is one of not being satisfied and we
struggle with that, both in our BC days, before Christ, and after. Before
we weren't satisfied because we wanted more money, more good times, more
this and more that, and after Christ we want to serve him more, more
impact, more effectiveness for Christ. It is a good motivator, but it needs
be tempered with patience and listening. Elisha found that out on the
mount. He was too busy yapping and watching the wind and all that and
missed the whisper of God. As Ned mentioned, I can't imagine Noah being
just a little bit in wonder, if he was doing the right thing. A hundred and
twenty years to build a boat? Come on man! I mean that takes some patience
to endure that stretch of time for a set of instructions to build it, and
then put up with the ridicule that he received. He must have been thought
of as a madman. The problem is with us is we are so use to microwave
theology. We read in seconds or minutes a couple verses of someone used
greatly by God and want same,  when in fact it didn't happen in a nanu
second. We look to our Biblical Super Heroes for examples of how we ought
serve God, and that is good, but the romantic human view of it all as we
picture how it might have occurred in our minds is nothing like it probably
was. As well when we look back at times of our hearing God, it is much the
clearer after we took action on it, and the events proved it to be an
accurate hearing of god, but was it all that positive, was it all that
clear,  in the midst of our listening originally? Did we have a conviction
immediately that we were hearing from God? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. My
wife... I keep saying she's incredible. I will start to say something like
out of the blue I'll say... "Hey would you..." and she'll finish the
flaming sentence for me. How in the world did she know what I was going to
say? How did she know what I was thinking?  I mean most times it has
nothing  to do with what we were even talking about. In reverse the other
day, we were talking and she said... "Do you think... well know forget it."
I said what. She said never mind. I said "Well you might as well tell me
because I'll know what it is anyway cause it has something to do with
camping." And it was exactly that. She wanted to know if she ought buy a
Smokey Joe grill but then thought to surprise me with it and I squeezed it
out of her lol. How in the world do we know what we are thinking or about
to say before it is even said many times? Because we spend so much time
together and we are one. We become so engrained as one that  sometimes it
is quite eerie... mostly her knowing what I'm about to say. However, we
also go through times of when we just do not get along too well. No matter
what we say seems to be taken the wrong way. I watched a Little House on
the Prairie as we have them on DVD, I love watching them because of the
lesson within them. Anyway Mr. Garvey lost his crop and couldn't find work.
He was bent on seeing himself as a poor provider and not worthy of marriage
any longer. So he filed for divorce. He and his wife both loved each other
very  much but he was bent on his pride. The argument that motivated the
divorce was his wife was going to take a job at the post office. He didn't
want her to as  quote, "No wife of mine is going to work and that's final".
She wanted to take the job to help out with finances. He took it that she
was saying he was a poor provider. She was saying we need money, things
happened of no fault to Mr. Garvey but they needed money. He could only see
it as her saying he was a poor provider and no good. We tend to live life
through what we wish to see and until we open up our eyes and see past our
little world, perhaps then we can be more at ease.  I've noted the pattern
between my wife and I when we get in these modes of misunderstanding, it is
when we do not spend time together. We tend to get off in our own little
worlds thinking our own little thoughts, get accustomed to flying on our
own, and we become selfish. We then see other things as a threat to our
selfishness and then trouble begins. It is when we finally have had our
little tantrums, and we feel that we've punished both each other and
ourselves long enough, that we stop, look at each other and say... "Hey,
what are we doing?". Many times we don't' even feel like getting to that
point because we enjoy pushing the envelope a little harder. Sort of like a
sore tooth... sorry Phil... But a sore tooth, if you push on it, it almost
feels better for a while, at least while the pushing is occurring, but ease
up and it begins to hurt again. And just like Phil's tooth, if you let that
tooth go, if you let that relationship go, it will begin to be distorted
and inflated and begins to be the only thing one can think of. However if
we get past the immediate and look past it, we can find our selves in much
a different position. Return to our intimate relationship and once again
begin to know the voice of our spouse, and our God, without a word being
said many times.

Brad






Kathy Du Bois wrote:

Hey Brad,
I know that  you mean well, but I know that, while your answer is
theologicly correct, it is often unsatisfactory to the person who is
asking the question.  We wish that God would come down and say, "You are
a hammer,"  or "You are a drinking glass.  This is how you fit into my
puzzle.  This is your function and job while you are on this earth."





Everything that you said is true, and, probably most of us know all this
in the back of our mind, but figuring out how to apply this knowledge is
difficult and then, you can have doubt about whether you're  doing it
right or wrong or really discerning God's voice because the fruit can
either be so hidden or take so long to develop.  I'm constantly asking
this question myself.  I want my role in life more clearly defined so
that I know that  I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.  Too often, I feel
like I'm lost in the woods without a map.
Kathy

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Brad

   Never give the devil a ride, he will always want to drive