Searching for God's Will

Years ago when I was working for Union Pacific I began to feel that God was prodding me to get back into pastoral ministry. After I had prayed about it and talked to my wife about it I went to a group of men that I met with once a week as an accountability group and shared with them that I felt God was leading that way. I asked them to pray about it with me and in their own quiet time and let me know what thoughts or impressions they received.

I didn’t know if God’s intention was full time or bi vocational, if God had something in mind in Kansas where I was at the time or if it was somewhere else, I was not even sure if God wanted me to be a pastor, either senior pastor or staff pastor or if he had something else in mind. I just knew that I felt God preparing me for a more active ministerial role and telling me to get ready for a change.

Months went by and I was still praying and seeking God’s will, I had started doing pulpit supply for various churches and nothing really felt right. I didn’t feel that I should quit my job and that job made it very difficult to consider pastoring a church so I was really lost about what to do. What was I missing, what did God want, what should I do next, it was driving me crazy.

An opportunity came up to move to another job in another state with the railroad and it seemed that this job would allow me more freedom to pursue ministry, maybe this was what God was preparing me for. Maybe this was it. So I put out a fleece.

Have you ever felt like you knew that God wanted something from you but you were just not sure what it was. Have you ever wondered what God has in store for you? Today I want to continue to look at Gideon and what God wanted from him. If you remember last week we found Gideon trying to eke out a living and hide a little food from the Midianites and and an angel appeared to him and told him to go in his strength and deliver Israel from Midian. It scared him to death.

He was unsure and very doubtful about what God wanted and even if it really was God that wanted it. So he asked the angel for sign.

Judges 6:17–24 NASB95

So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me. “Please do not depart from here, until I come back to You, and bring out my offering and lay it before You.” And He said, “I will remain until you return.” Then Gideon went in and prepared a young goat and unleavened bread from an ephah of flour; he put the meat in a basket and the broth in a pot, and brought them out to him under the oak and presented them. The angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened bread and lay them on this rock, and pour out the broth.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the Lord, he said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” The Lord said to him, “Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and named it The Lord is Peace. To this day it is still in Ophrah of the Abiezrites.

So Gideon is completely unprepared for an angel of God to come to him, he can’t believe that God has chosen him for anything important, especially this. So he looks for confirmation. He asks the angel to wait while he goes and prepares a sacrifice, a meal of meat and bread and broth. Remember that Midian has taken almost everything they have, this may have been the last of his food, it was a very extravagant gift from someone who is trying not to starve. Gideon sets the food before the angel and according to the angel’s instructions he pours the broth over the bread and meat, then the angel reached out with his staff and touched the food and fire sprang up out of solid rock and consumed the meat, the bread and even the broth. before the shock could wear off the angel himself disappeared and left Gideon standing there by himself, amazed and confused.

Now he knows, it is God and God has chosen him. So when God tells him to tear down his father’s idol to Baal he does it.

But even then, even after all of that Gideon still had doubts, he was still unsure, he still needed more, so he put out a fleece. Gideon tested God, he wanted proof, he came up with the idea of putting out a fleece, a piece of lamb skin on the ground and if the fleece was wet with dew and the ground was dry that would prove that God was with him. But that wasn’t enough. Even after he woke up the next morning and the fleece wet and the ground dry it was not enough and he reversed the test, now let the fleece be dry and the ground be wet and let us go through this again, and God did.

So why did God put up with all of this nonsense, why not just order Gideon to go and demand that he do it? Why would God allow a man to put him to the test and then do it again the next night? Well, God tells us that he is patient and he is kind, he is longsuffering. I love that word. Suffering means something that hurts, and it doesn’t just hurt once but it hurts consistently for a long time, that is what suffering is.

God is longsuffering, he suffers for a long time because he loves us, he knows we have doubts and fears. He would rather we just loved him and trusted him and followed him, it hurts him when we doubt him, but he is longsuffering and he puts up with our doubt and our fear. Do you have doubts, are you ever unsure of what to do, of what God expects or what he wants. Have you ever been afraid to share the gospel with someone because you are afraid you will mess it up, forget what to say or say the wrong thing? Have you ever been afraid to tithe or give or help someone out because were afraid you couldn’t pay your bills. Have you ever been afraid to reach out to someone who is hurting, afraid they would not appreciate it or that they would reject you? God understands our fear and our doubt and he is longsuffering with us.

Back to my story. I wondered if God wanted me to take that job and if this was what God had been preparing me for. I decided to ask three friends and their spouses to pray specifically about this, three people I knew to be spiritually mature and able to discern the things of God. I asked them to pray for a week and then met with each of them to ask them to share their impressions and thoughts. It seemed as if God was leading in that direction. So I planned a trip, the wife and I went to Omaha Nebraska and made a circle all the way around the city at about a 30 mile radius looking for a place we might like to live or some sign from God that he was calling us there.

The first day we drove through several towns in both Nebraska and Iowa, since Omaha is on the border. We looked until it got dark and found a hotel room in the town where it got too dark to see, Missouri Valley Iowa. The next morning was Sunday morning and we decided to leave the hotel and drive down the main road and attend the first baptist church we saw. We walked into a little church and the five of us were about 1/4 of the people there. We sung worship songs and a man got up to preach and he was monotone and dry. I learned later that he was an accountant and he preached exactly the way you would expect an accountant to preach, all the facts and numbers and nothing else.

I leaned over to my wife and said as soon as he stops preaching get the kids and lets get out of here. He preached and he prayed and when we opened our eyes from the prayer we were surrounded. It looked like everyone else in the church had rushed to where we were sitting to talk to us. We were shaking hands and telling everyone we were from out of state when my darling oldest son let slip that I was a pastor. They told us that they were looking for a pastor and invited us to lunch. I politely refused, they asked again and again and I agreed to go eat with them. During lunch they asked if I would be willing to come preach for them, several times. I agreed that I would come up and preach but told them that I was not sure if we would be moving to the area or not. We set a date and then we headed home since I had to go to work Monday.

The date came and I drove up and preached for them, they offered me the pastorate on the spot. I told them that since they could not afford full time it would depend on whether or not I got the job in the area. I decided that I would put out a fleece. No one I knew had gotten one of these jobs without trying three or four times since they were based on seniority. I put in a bid.

While I was home waiting to see what would happen the pastor of the church I was attending took a weeks vacation and I preached for the church. Unknown to me there was a man visiting that day who was very involved in mission work. He liked the church and when he got back home he wrote a pretty big check to the church along with a letter explaining how much he enjoyed the church and the service and thanking the church for allowing him to worship with them while he was in town.

I got the bid. Now I was commited, I had 30 days to qualify on the job and was in Iowa for 30 days on my own. I lived in a hotel and preached at the church and began looking for a house for my family. I also tried to figure out how to pay for the moving truck and the gas to get my stuff to Iowa. The Pastor and elders got together and decided to give half of what the visitor had gifted the church to my family to help us relocate. It was enough to pay my moving expenses. I moved most of our stuff into a couple of unused Sunday School rooms and kept looking for a house. I found one to rent and we moved to Iowa. I had a job where I worked nights so I could schedule my days however I needed and could pastor the church. God blessed me.

By the way when we left Iowa I felt that God was sending us back to Kansas and I still had a house payment in Kansas and the house I had bought in Iowa. I had been in the house in Iowa about a year and had no equity in the house. I told God that if he wanted me to move back I would but he would either have to take charge of selling the house or I would go bankrupt and it would happen quickly.

We moved, the house sold in about a month, we got enough money for the house to pay the realtor fees, both buying and selling and pay for the materials I used shingling the roof and installing a wood burning stove and have us break even. God is good. God taught me to trust him, and he is faithful. God brought things together that I could not have planned if I had thought about it for months. I had doubts, and fears, I had no idea how everything would work out, but I chose to trust God and he made it all happen. It’s like God plans stuff, because he does. And not only that but he loves me and takes care of me, and he will do it for you too.

Do you wonder what God has for your, ask him. Are you unsure about God, test him. He challenges us to test him on any promise he has made and see how true he is, how faithful he is. It is OK to doubt and to wonder, it is OK to ask, God wants you to learn that the safest thing you can do is trust him. Give it a try will you.