Been thinking, but my thoughts are not always so deep and profound, so here are a few reflections on the above title. We believe we are doing what the Lord wants us to do – at least most of the time we can affirm that. It shapes our response to invitations, personal and corporate. It shapes our time and what we give ourselves to, what we prioritise. And in all that there are times we simply do whatever comes up without a great amount of consideration to the ‘why’ of doing it. My guess is that is pretty much how we all approach life.
So we can say ‘God led me’ with some measure of conviction – but what does that really mean? I am reflecting on the set of posts with respect to the trajectory from corporate priesthood through to Temple (which I obviously found were so good that I put them together as an e-book: A Redemptive Trajectory!!). In that reflection where God goes with the people where they go. He ‘leads’ them in the choice of a king (both Saul and David). But what does that mean? He leads them on a course where the very base of it is out of kilter.
That is the humbling part of ‘God led me’. Yes he probably did, but it does not mean that I would be on the same course had I been in a different, a better a higher place in God and the understanding of the kingdom at the time of decision making.
God leads but it seems he leads within our limitations, within our understandings, within our weaknesses – the ones that are obvious and ones that are hidden. Likewise we prophesy and God is in it. This is also what we see in Scripture. The law does not reveal the will of God, but it points toward his will, his will being revealed in personal not propositional terms in the life of Jesus.
We can be confident that God does and will lead us. We should also be somewhat humble in our affirmation that we have heard God and are ‘at the centre of his will’ even when he is showing up all around us and in what we are doing – after all where else is he going to show up?!!
Thank God he leads us. Thank God he is with us, and by the grace of God his leading will change over time – as I change.