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Men of Integrity, Jul/Aug 2001
It's Painfully Clear
Theme for the Week: Agreeing with God
Saturday, July 28
Q. You maintain that doing God's will is not complicated. Why?
A. We tend to confuse complicated with hard. Asking questions is our best defense against committing ourselves to the very difficult truth we've already received.
When Horace Bushnell began teaching at Yale Divinity School, he prayed that God would give him more light, thinking that enlightenment was what he needed in order to become a better teacher of ministers. In time, however, Bushnell realized that it made little sense to ask God for more light when he hadn't been faithful to the insights already given him.
The day this understanding gripped him, he wrote in his diary, "I have moved from the agony of questions I cannot answer to the agony of answers I cannot escape."
Give us an example.
Wondering about killing your boss? This isn't exactly a gray area in the Bible. Jesus made it clear that love is better than hatred, even when it comes to our enemies. Jesus also kept telling his followers that since life is such a fragile thing, it's best to go ahead and lose it while pursuing things that will make an eternal difference.
What we need is not all of the missing pieces to life's puzzle, but enough courage to live by the clear insights we have. Our lives have been placed in the midst of personal relationships in which we've been called to love. We've also been placed in a dark world that's desperate for light.
There's no question about what we should do. The real question is, will we do it?
M. Craig Barnes is pastor of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C.
Adapted from: Sacred Thirst (Zondervan, 2001)
For your convenience, Sacred Thirst is available in the ChristianityToday.com bookstore.
Copyright © 2001 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Men of Integrity magazine.
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July/August 2001, Vol. 4, No. 3,
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Prayer for the Week |
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O Lord … give us such a mighty love to Thee as may sweeten all our obedience.
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