The jagged course
A friend of mine asked me about our adoption journey and mentioned how it seems like we are all over the place. I suppose it does. Eddy and I have thought about our journey and where it will lead.
This reminds me of the writings of M.Blaine Smith, one of my favorite writers on Christian spirituality. He discusses our tendency to think we have it all figured out after being led in a certain direction.
For example, Eddy and I both felt very strongly led to India. We needed to feel that to get us where we are, but we interpreted it as being a peek in to the future.
To explain this further, M. Blaine Smith uses the metaphor of a lantern on a path. We get the light we need to take the next step. The temptation is to believe that we know the path and where it will lead simply because we are certain of our next step. M. Blaine Smith writes:
"When I finally began studying God's guidance in Scripture, I realized how presumptuous I had been to think this way. Again and again, Scripture shows that God rarely, if ever, tips his hand to us about our personal future; he merely gives us enough guidance to take the next step in faith.
Even a man as remarkably mature spiritually as St. Paul seldom knew God's precise intention for his own future. When he writes to the Corinthians of his desire to visit them, for instance, he states, "For I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may speed me on my journey, wherever I go. For I do not want to see you now just in passing; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits" (1 Cor 16:5-7 RSV, italics mine). In many ways, Paul indicates that his notion of where God was leading him was tentative at best.
Paul was strongly convinced about what God wanted him to do presently--which was to stay and minister in Ephesus. "I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me," he explains (v 8). Beyond this, though, he was cautious in declaring what God intended for him; he expressed his hopes and desires for the future, but left its ultimate outcome to God."
This reminds me of the writings of M.Blaine Smith, one of my favorite writers on Christian spirituality. He discusses our tendency to think we have it all figured out after being led in a certain direction.
For example, Eddy and I both felt very strongly led to India. We needed to feel that to get us where we are, but we interpreted it as being a peek in to the future.
To explain this further, M. Blaine Smith uses the metaphor of a lantern on a path. We get the light we need to take the next step. The temptation is to believe that we know the path and where it will lead simply because we are certain of our next step. M. Blaine Smith writes:
"When I finally began studying God's guidance in Scripture, I realized how presumptuous I had been to think this way. Again and again, Scripture shows that God rarely, if ever, tips his hand to us about our personal future; he merely gives us enough guidance to take the next step in faith.
Even a man as remarkably mature spiritually as St. Paul seldom knew God's precise intention for his own future. When he writes to the Corinthians of his desire to visit them, for instance, he states, "For I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps I will stay with you or even spend the winter, so that you may speed me on my journey, wherever I go. For I do not want to see you now just in passing; I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits" (1 Cor 16:5-7 RSV, italics mine). In many ways, Paul indicates that his notion of where God was leading him was tentative at best.
Paul was strongly convinced about what God wanted him to do presently--which was to stay and minister in Ephesus. "I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me," he explains (v 8). Beyond this, though, he was cautious in declaring what God intended for him; he expressed his hopes and desires for the future, but left its ultimate outcome to God."
posted by Mom to brown eyed kids | 10:53 AM
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