Lisa at our sharing at Cornerstone Concord this morning
Today I was asked a question about how we ascertain God’s leading. It was in response to our sharing about how I felt God leading us to move house to The Lighthouse (in the shower!) even though Lisa and I had decided initially that we would not move as we’d just spent quite a bit of money on renovations on our old house. Answering off the top of my head I talked about how I’d discussed what I felt was God’s leading with my wife and we talked and prayed about it and both felt it was the right decision. Also, our team leader’s wife thought along the same lines on the same night. If the decision was not against the clear teaching of the Bible and God hasn’t directed us otherwise, then God has given us human wisdom to use to go ahead with a decision.
As I was reflecting on my answer this afternoon and if I had my chance to answer that question again, I would add that if God’s leading leads us to die to ourselves and to glorify God, then it is more likely to be God’s leading that an opposing decision which would make things easier for us or lift us up in our standing in society.
So regarding our decision to move to The Lighthouse, it caused us a lot of hassle in moving again and wasted the money we spent on renovations - it required a dying to ourselves. The opposing decision to remain in our old house would have been a lot easier and didn’t require any sacrifice. So using this measure, the decision to move was more likely to be God leading than the decision to stay.
This is not an absolute rule of course and I’m sure there would be exceptions when a dying to ourselves might not be God’s leading. Yet, I think this measure of dying to ourselves and the glorification of God is a good one and helpful for ascertaining God’s leading (this idea was not my own by the way. I think I heard it first from a talk by Frank Viola).
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