As our family dives into the adoption process again, we pray that God would “bring the right baby for us”. We don’t know who that baby will be. We still don’t know. And starting out, we also didn’t know how we would accomplish this. We didn’t have the money we needed. We had a lot of paper work to fill out. The paper work happened over time as Sara plugged away at it sheet by sheet. But the money was a different story…
One Sunday, a friend called Sara and I over to a corner of the church. The person was almost dancing in excitement as they asked about our adoption. Then they said that the Lord had told them we would adopt over a year before we announced it. The Holy Spirit also let them know that they should support us with a year end bonus they had received. This friend handed us a check for a large amount of money. They couldn’t stop smiling the whole time because they were excited to see what God was doing.
“I’m so excited because I KNOW this is a God thing,” they said. And this isn’t the first time this has happened to us.
God is working through the Holy Spirit, but so many times we miss it. Why? I think one of the reasons is the temptation to view certain spiritual gifts as better than others. Secondly, sometimes Christians want to place their subjective experience above the Bible. While God invites us to search for more of his presence and power in our lives, that always needs to be held in check by what the Bible says. That takes humility. That’s hard to do. So, I’m examining my life so I can honestly say,
I am Humbly Responsive
Most of us want to experience God’s spirit in a deeper way and stay humble, but we seem to mess it up. Again I ask, why? Bob Kauflin points to three possible reasons.
- Subjective Opinions – As I mentioned before, God can work through our everyday experience and sometimes does speak to us directly through prayer, his Word or other believers. If God is speaking to you, please, please, please don’t say to someone, “God Told Me to Tell You”. That is the WRONG way to start any conversation. All believers are priests of God. Realize that you are not God. Share what God has told you and let your fellow believer discern if it’s God speaking through you or not.
- Fear of Being Wrong – This where I fall short so much of the time. What if I’m are wrong? I hate being wrong or looking stupid. Approaching someone for prayer or encouragement means I might be wrong or, even worse, rejected. Humbly step out in faith and trust God to work through you in his time and his way.
- Spiritual Experiences – Lastly, we search for spiritual experiences over biblical ones! The primary way God speaks is through the spiritual disciplines of prayer and scripture! As Kauflin writes,
“Experiences of God’s presence, while important, aren’t at the heart of our relationship with God.”
So let us pursue God and his Holy Spirit. But while we do that, let’s humbly and bravely speak God’s words while keeping our subjective opinions to ourselves and remember that God is always speaking through His Word and through prayer.
God, helps us to acknowledge our desperate need, to eagerly expect you to show up and then humbly respond. Father, help us to know that this is the work of the Holy Spirit in us.
In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.
_____________________________________________
This is the last of three blog posts on heart attitudes connected with worship. To read the first blog, click here OR to see the video of the final True Worship class presenting all three attitudes and connecting them to the worship of heaven, click below…
Thanks again to Bob Kauflin for his thoughts on worship. These three attitudes come from from his book, “True Worshipers” which has had a huge impact on our ministry!
Worship360 