Sun April 25, 2010 // Gifts & Abilities // 1 Samuel 16:14-23
by admin on Apr.27, 2010, under Sunday Recordings
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Stu’s Talk
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Text-in Panel Discussion with Stu featuring Julie Morris & Sean St. Clair
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April 28th, 2010 on 8:15 am
In the Panel audio I mention we will post the questions on the web that we were unable to address during the panel. As it turned out we were able to get to every question on the recording. Enjoy.
And…excellent job by Julie and Sean on the panel. Really helpful insights.
May 5th, 2010 on 11:14 am
I apologize before hand about my spelling and grammar.
I have been thinking a lot about one of the questions asked on the panel recently. I can’t remember exactly how it was stated but it was along the lines “I have been seeking God and believe I am doing his will but I still fill empty”
This really spoke out to me and I believe a lot of christens can also relate to this feeling. So after doing some home work and praying this is what I have come up with. Please set me start if I have gone astray.
The statement : “I have been seeking God and believe I am doing his will but I still fill empty”
From this we can see our own expectations:
A + B = C
(A)Being me a christen + (B) seeking God = (C) felling fulfilled [but something is wrong because I fill empty]
So are expectation is that if we seek God in a specific way we will find exactly what we are looking for…i.e. ; happiness and fulfillment
I am not sure if this was the questioners in intent but what is what I have surmised by the statement. However I don’t think God tell us to seek Him and we will be filled in the romanticized view I want to be filled.
So if I cannot control how God chooses to full fill (C) filling me up. Then the only logical step would be to look at how I am perceiving (A) being a christen or (B) seeking God.
In conclusions I have seen that in my seeking God I may indeed be seeking him and answering his call appropriately but what is wrong is my attempt to control the outcome. I want to force God to fulfill my life in the way I see most fitting. When most of the times I have no idea what God is doing in my life or how He will choose to bless me.
So now what do I do?…I have come to realize that dealing with life is difficult and we all try to control God in different ways because it’s the only way we can manage the pain of being separated from God. But we don’t have to live this way we can simply gives this pain to God and trust in him.
I see this act of “giving up my pain” as having two distinct parts. “The first part is the admission that we have obsessive traits. Those traits appear in the way we try to manipulate the affairs of our lives to ease the inner pain of separation from God. The second part is the admission that our lives have been, and will continue to be, unmanageable if we insist on living by our own will.” This was a passage I read in a 12 step book, this is step 1
So what I learned
(A) A Christen + (B) seeking God = (D) a closer walk with God, not minimally earthly happiness
May 5th, 2010 on 12:47 pm
Jami,
I can tell you put a lot of thought into that. I appreciate being able to see your journey in thought.
I agree with you that emptiness we experience stems from unmet desires (“expectations” is correct also, but has too many definitions and could get confusing).
You wrote, “but what is wrong is my attempt to control the outcome.” I agree. I think we often expect, and indeed desire the result of our God-seeking to be less stress, more money, better work environments, better friends, etc. (The scope of our expectations on Him is bafflingly infinite)
The subversive irony becomes that we recognize our need for Jesus’ salvation from the world(and many other things), begin following Jesus out of gratitude (and many other things), and then wonder at the brokenness of the world again as if it should have gone away or stopped trying to assert it’s brokenness on us. If the brokenness that separates humanity from our creator intended on stopping, we wouldn’t really need a savior at all.
A Christian seeking God will always yield a long-term gain of walking more closely with God. If this is what we have come to expect & desire, I would argue it’s incredibly difficult to walk away feeling empty. What you learned is incredibly important, and I think it’s a game changer for the way we follow Jesus. Good work, Jami!