Follow By Forging

I want to be in pursuit of God's will. I do not want to sit idle, until I'm slapped on the side of the head with it. I think we make a crutch out of, "I don't want to get ahead of God's lead," finding therein a cowardly excuse to avoid strange things. I ask (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) "Who cares?" Is it so terrible to get a step or two ahead of God? Oh, sure, it could be, but by what order of magnitude is it worse than stubbornly refusing to forge ahead in faith?! So we spend all our life 15 steps behind God, entrenched in stubborn disobedience, because we are afraid we might get a couple steps too far ahead in fleshly exuberance. How much better off are we that way? Is our fleshly exuberance too big a problem for God to solve? Is He not able to rein us back if we get carried away? Can we not trust Him for that? I hear your caution, and agree: there are serous dangers of going ahead without God's guidance. But I'm not suggesting forging a new path without praying to the Lord for guidance. I'm talking about going ahead and whacking a few bushes on the path to see if that's the direction I should go. But, I guess we've decided it's better to sit in a lawn chair in the middle of the path until God paints a yellow line through the forest, so we can be sure we don't cut down too many bushes. I'm learning that God doesn't show His will with a yellow line. He shows it one bush at a time. You've got to cut it down, brother. God is able to steer you, even if you take a few swings in the wrong direction. O Lord, forgive the crude simplicity of my understanding. I really do want to stay in step with you. I need to be guided constantly. But too often I balk, being a citizen of the kingdom of faith but paying loyalty to fear. Help me to be courageous in seeking you, even if I don't know exactly where I'm going.

What is the worst kind of evil?

This is an open-ended question. No tricks or traps. Just a good old-fashioned dinner-table discussion question. What do you think?

Got Joy?

I was musing the other day about the service of the Lord, and how we often exchange the pleasantries of the flesh in order to fulfill the service of God. There is, with this fulfillment, a sure joy that is bigger than ourselves. Somewhere in this musing, the question came:

Who wants comfort, when we can have joy?