He Leadeth Me

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the idea of God’s calling on our lives and how He leads us. It seems to me that there may be a lot of misconceptions in the minds of Christians, due to lack of teaching or wrong teaching on the subject. (James 1:5-8 is often misused in this regard.) Perhaps you can identify with some of these misguided thoughts:

• If you pray about it, God will give you clear directions.
• Good Christians can always know what God intends for them to do.
• If you don’t know what to do, it’s your own lack of faith.
• When God closes a door, He opens a window.

Looking back over my own journey, I can get discouraged by thinking that I’ve made wrong decisions that God has to keep fixing. And if I fall into the comparison trap, it looks like the really “spiritual people” have no doubts about the road ahead. That’s why I found great encouragement in this quote from a sermon by T.J. Tims:

“If we’re bouncing around, and we often are, it’s only the bumpers of divine sovereignty, sort of directing our course, making our lives fruitful. And I know that when I say that, some of us, we feel as if we’ve gone irreparably off course in our lives. Like there was this better version of our life that could have been, and here we are settling for like the third or fourth or fifth or hundredth tier down of the life that we could have had. But it cannot be true, because down beneath our derailments—the unavoidable ones and the avoidable ones—are the everlasting arms of God, working out all things for our good and for His glory. God’s out ahead of us preparing the way… We discover our destiny like this—by choosing… a God-glorifying heading and then walking that way… What do you want to do, for His glory? Head that way. And then, expect derailments— [Ephesians 2:10, ‘God prepared good works] that we should walk in them.’ …You choose a heading that you know would be pleasing to God, and then you receive the derailments as the will of God. And along the way you find yourself stumbling into fruitfulness that you did not anticipate. That’s what it looks like to be led by God.”

He goes on to point to the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 1:13 “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I have often intended to come to you (but thus far have been prevented), in order that I may reap some harvest among you as well as among the rest of the Gentiles.” Paul literally went through shipwrecks, imprisonment, and beatings as he sought to follow God’s will. That would make anybody question whether they were on the right path.

Think about some of the other people in Scripture.

• Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going (Heb. 11:8).
• Joshua, after bragging to his brothers, ended up in a pit, slavery, and prison, before eventually being able to say “God meant it for good” (Gen. 50:20).
• Moses went from the palace to the wilderness before he was ready to lead the Israelites out of Egypt (Ex. 2:10, 15). When he did receive divine instruction in a burning bush, he tried to talk his way out of it (Ex. 3:11).
• After surviving a famine, Naomi lost her husband and sons. All she could think to do was go back to her home country, and Ruth decided to go with her. They had no idea God would use that decision to contribute to the lineage of the Messiah (Matt. 1:5).
• Jonah tried to run from God’s direct command and ended up in a fish (Jon. 1:17).
• John the Baptist seemed clear on his direction until he ended up in prison. Then he wondered if he’d been wrong all along (Matt. 11:3).

The vast majority of people in the Bible never heard a direct command from God telling them where to go and what to do. They simply went through their lives doing the next thing that was before them. And in ancient culture there just weren’t that many options. There were few career paths, and most people stayed in one community for life.

Today, we have so many options that we don’t even know how to choose. We think it would be nice if God handed each of us a manuscript and said “Here’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.” Then we could feel confident that we were on the right path. Instead, we are meant to just keep walking and making the best decisions we can with the information we have, and trust that God will derail our plans if He chooses to. It takes a lot more faith to live this way than it would to just follow an instruction book.

If I had planned the path to get to where I am now, I would have made it a much straighter road. The things I thought I was going to do didn’t pan out, and I had to choose the next step while walking in the dark. God used both positive and negative experiences to change my course (probably more of the negative ones). I never had any revelation that “Aha, that’s where God is taking me!” But looking back I can see how God used me in different ways in each of the many segments of the path. And God will use me in whatever direction my future path may go (though I’m not planning any changes at this point). He already knows our paths and is present with us at each step of the way, no matter how convoluted the road may seem (see Psalm 139).

“The Lord is my shepherd… He leads me in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me” (Ps. 23:1, 3-4a).

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© 2022 Dawn Rutan text and image. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Gifted to Serve

Lately I’ve been thinking about spiritual gifts. Back in the 90s there was a big push for spiritual gift tests, which has largely died down now. Coming of age in that era, I remember taking several different tests, not because I was all that concerned about my gifts but mostly because I enjoyed tests that had no wrong answers. Each test seemed to have a slightly different list of the gifts. Some of them included teaching on how the gifts apply to the church today and how the test results might be used.

Although I agreed with the idea of gift assessments at the time, I now approach them with far more skepticism. For one thing, in the primary passages used to justify these tests, Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul makes no claim to be providing a comprehensive listing. The Greek word used here is χαρίσματα, literally meaning a gift of grace. The root χαρίσμα is used elsewhere such as Romans 5:15-16 to refer to gifts in a very different sense, so I’m not convinced that Paul was intentionally setting apart these “spiritual gifts” as unique abilities divvied out to every believer. I believe that every Christian does have spiritual gifts, of which these lists are just a sampling. Therefore, spiritual gift assessments have a very limited application and can actually lead to faulty thinking.

One peril is that of thinking of the gifts as prescriptive rather than descriptive. In taking those tests I always got the feeling that the results meant I needed to change my major and pursue a different career. I did in fact end up in a far different career than I’d planned on, but that was because God kept giving me new experiences and changing interests, not because some test said I was suited for something different. If I were using a spiritual gift test today, I would be sure to interpret it as “If these are activities you enjoy, here are some ways they might contribute to the Body of Christ.”

Another pitfall that I’ve witnessed on more than one occasion is pride. People I loved basically said, “I have the gifts of discernment and wisdom, so you have to agree with my views on everything.” Only later did I find out that their views were highly colored by the benefits they received. I think pride often plays a role in the groups that insist that Christians must be able to speak in tongues.

Then there is the danger of segregation of gifts. One might come to the conclusion, “Service is not my gift so I don’t need to help with that project,” or “I don’t have the gift of generosity so I don’t need to give more than the bare minimum.” As a result, people and things get neglected. As Alistair Begg pointed out on today’s broadcast, if you think you can claim “I don’t have the gift of hospitality,” read 1 Peter 4:9.

Some of the gift tests include the gift of celibacy, based on 1 Corinthians 7:7. A recent Gospel Coalition podcast by Sam Allberry, 5 Misconceptions about Singleness, points out the problem with this view. If someone is single but longing for marriage, they conclude they don’t have the gift of singleness, which only compounds their discontentment. In addition, a correct reading of that Scripture would imply that marriage is also a gift. So if a married person decides they don’t have the “gift of marriage,” what are they supposed to do? How far should we take the language of “gifts”?

I’ve written before about the idea of a person’s calling, and I think gifting falls in the same category. Gifts and calling are best revealed by responding to our current circumstances in whatever way God may lead. If you see a need and have the ability to respond, just do it. Henry Blackaby wrote in Experiencing God,

“I believe many people today are seeking God’s call to ministry or an assignment backwards. We teach people to discover their spiritual gifts and then look for an assignment in which they can use their gifts. That can be a frustrating experience... When God gives an assignment, a person obeys and God accomplishes what He intended through the person” (46).

The way forward is usually discovered one step at a time, not by following a road map (or Siri) that has each turn laid out. No two people have identical gifts and calling, and every person is needed to serve the Body of Christ. Ironically the June issue of Christianity Today has an article on the subject of spiritual gifts. Andrew Wilson wrote,

“Spiritual gifts, like manna, point forward to the day when they will no longer be needed. So believers, in the meantime, should receive and rejoice in God’s gifts, but without fixating on them as the primary tests of spirituality. Love, not the gifts, is the mark of the Spirit’s work that will last forever.”

“And I will show you a still more excellent way... So now faith, hope,and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 12:31b-13:13 ESV).

© 2017 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated all images are copyright free from pixabay.com.