God's Willing, Are We? - Articles ‹ 37th Street Church of Christ

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God's Willing, Are We?

Perry Westmoreland
03/25/21 - Faith

God is always willing to lead. The real issue isn't convincing Him to do so, the real issue is our hearts being willing to follow, no matter what, without wavering. Many of our songs say similar things and scripture talks about these repeatedly (hence the reason they find their way into our songs), but it becomes obvious that us asking God to lead is pointless unless we are committed to follow His lead.

But when do we want God to lead? This song says, "In Life's Darkest Hours..." "When Life's Troubles Come..." We can have dark days and troubles even when our faith is strong. Our faith may actually be at its strongest, yet our situation is beyond our control. Sickness, death, divorce, loss of a job and the suchlike are times we are asking God to lead us, but more in a 'take away the pain' or 'comfort our sorrows' or 'control this situation we can't control' type of leadership. For certain, we need God in these times, and anybody who has been around the block a time or two in life knows these are times when we may ask God with the most fervent of prayers to lead us through the hardest of times.

What about times when sin is weighing us down, and we feel like we are carrying around a sack of feed on our shoulders? What about when guilt has us buried neck deep in a hole, and we don't know how to get out? What about those times in life when we might feel we are so far from God that we aren't even sure He can hear us calling? God tells us we are never too far away to call Him, (Eph 2:4-5) but that aside, we might feel as if we are a lost cause.

On the opposite extreme, what about when times are really good, when things "are going our way".... these are the times it's equally as easy to forget about God isn't it? We are happy, we have money in our pockets and food in our stomachs and we don't see as readily the need to ask for God's provisions. Society is meeting our needs, or so we may think. These, I believe, are the times it is the easiest to slip back into a life we may have worked hard to say 'no' to when we said 'yes' to God. We may see some things we liked about our life before God or some old "friends", and we may find ourselves being pulled back that way again. When we ask Him to lead us, and not let us wander astray, are these not times we need Him as strongly as all the others, even though it may not feel like it?

So what's the ultimate goal for us? Why do we solicit God to lead us, and why do we put forth the effort to follow His lead? This life with all of its trouble will some day end, and temptation to sin as we know it will no longer come. But on that day it will not be time to decide whether or not we want to follow God. No, on that day, it will be too late to decide anything because our decisions and actions in life will have made that choice for us, and God will simply look at what we've done and render His verdict. (2 Cor 5:10, Rom 2:6, 1 Peter 1:17, 1 Cor 4:5) On that day, it will certainly be important whether or not we asked Him to lead? But what will matter is whether or not we followed.

The graphic I chose today says, "God's got this - and you!" and He does, no doubt. But some people think that's all there is to it, just sit back and let God do "HIS" thing. But we have a thing to do too, and our part makes it or breaks it. When we ask God to lead us, we know He has the power to do just that, but if we think our job is done after we ask, we are fooling ourselves. We have a responsibility to have our eyes wide open for answers to those prayers, and to stand ready to step up and get busy following Him.