Wednesday, 05 December 2007

  • On Serving God

    I read a great chapter in a 1961 book entitled, "The Theology of the Christian Mission".  The chapter was written by Johannes Blauw, who I'm pretty sure was a Dutch guy.  With reference to God's rejection of Saul as Israel's king, he notes,

    "The declaration of Samuel (15:23) is important: 'For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.'  Saul did not refuse to serve God (verse 20), but he did refuse to serve God in the way that the prophet of God had showed to him.  Serving God in your own way is serving God for your own purposes, and that is the same as the original sin".

    As someone who has "served God" vocationally in full-time roles for about 20 years, I was sharply rebuked by these words.  It's one thing to choose to serve God, but HOW we serve God is another thing entirely.  I've always had my own ideas on how I would serve God and when circumstances messed with my ideas I would and still do become angry.  Why have I thought that I get to choose how I will serve God?  Would any of the OT prophets have chosen to become fools for God if they had any say in the matter? (poor Ezekiel) 

    No, we don't get to choose how we will serve God.  If our plans pan out, great!  But they often don't, and we can either get angry and shake our heads at God's poor management of our gifts, or we can ride contrary circumstances like waves wherever God takes us.  I really wish it hadn't taken me 40+ years to figure this out.  The anger has caused me a lot of turmoil and hurt others near me. 

    Privates don't tell Generals where they will go and what they will do.  Once we sign up, we are under orders, and those orders aren't our own.

Comments (3)

  • really_live

    Peterson talks about this in "Under the Unpredictable Plant." One of the reasons we don't want to do what we are told to do is because those things involve a variety of elements, from pain to boredom, that we don't like. But dealing with those very things are often what we need in order to develop vocational holiness.

    OT - Did you see this site that AJ talked about on his blog?

  • LaurieAnnP

    Good stuff, Dave. Truly.

    Would you drop by my xanga and comment on an issue in trying to reach MBBs?
  • a_stationary_emily

    Hey Dave--Sorry I haven't exactly been keeping up with your blog...senior year and all. It looks like you've been posting some good stuff! I thought after our discussion of Toto's Africa that you would enjoy this: http://video.xanga.com/Natethehunter/0bf06575186/video.html

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