Decisions To Be Made
Published on 30 Jan 2006 · Filed in Personal · 487 words (estimated 3 minutes to read)For the past few weeks, I’ve been struggling with a couple of very difficult decisions to make, and searching to find the Lord’s will in each of these decisions. I pray about these things, and every time it looks like one door is opening something happens that makes me wonder. Is it the Lord telling me I’m leaning the wrong direction, or the Enemy seeking to distract me?
There are two key areas in which I’m really wrestling with issues right now. One of these is my ministry to the church. Some months ago, I felt like I was being called into a “higher” form of ministry within the church, specifically directed at youth/teens. (I can’t really describe it better than that—I don’t know exactly what it is I’m supposed to do, just that I’m supposed to be doing more than I’m doing now.) Then some things happen, and it looks like that’s not supposed to happen. I also start to doubt myself, questioning my skills, my dedication, and my testimony. “Surely the Lord doesn’t want someone like me ministering to the youth? There are others that are more qualified and more educated than me.” That’s what I tell myself.
And then something happens like what happened this past Sunday. I had been down all morning, all weekend, and then I walked into my Sunday School classroom and someone (a “silent messenger”) had written this on my whiteboard:
The Lord doesn’t call people who are qualified to do His will. He qualifies them in the act of calling them to do His will. This is for you, Scott.
Now that may not really mean anything to you, but a few months earlier my wife had called me in the middle of the day one day to tell me she’d just heard something on the radio. She’d been listening to the radio, and the radio show host said, “God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.” The same message, from two different people, at two different times? I don’t believe in coincidence.
Well, that’s one decision settled…it seems pretty clear that the Lord wants me, that He is calling me. I don’t know about you, but when the Lord starts calling, I’m not going to ignore Him.
Now if the second decision were so clear. I have a big career-related decision to make—a really big decision. There are a great number of advantages and disadvantages either way, and no clear or overwhelming reasons to go one way versus the other. From a personal perspective, I have reasons to go either way. This is a really tough position to be in, but I’m trying very hard to let the Lord have His will and His way in this situation, so that He will be glorified.
For any of you Christian readers out there that may have stumbled my way, I certainly desire your prayers of guidance and direction.