Experiencing God Again!

This past Wednesday my wife Barb and I began a  small group in our new home where we are gathering with new friends and old friends (all age aside) to study Henry Blackaby's "Experiencing God". This study has had a profound affect on the church we love and pastor and on our lives as well. Over the course of this study I am going to be blogging here on my blog site about each week's gathering and the workbook homework (yes there is homework). My hope and prayer is two-fold: First it will allow you the reader of this blog the opportunity to engage with me as I once again jump into this journey with both feet! And secondly that it will be a place for those in the group that gathers in our home to engage daily with me as we make our way together thru what God wants to do  in our lives as we daily seek Him!

So today is Day 1 of Unit One which is entitled "God's Will and Your Life" at the end of each day the author calls us to REFLECT on one statement that sticks with us. Now, as you can imagine there are multiple statements that could possibly jump out at a person and attempting to narrow it to one is often a task in and of itself (especially for a preacher man). But there is one statement that hits me every time I read it in this section and that is the following:

"He (God) is more likely to call you to follow one day at a time than He is to spell out all the details before you begin to obey Him!" 

This statement is incredibly challenging to me personally and as a pastor I know I am not alone! The reality is we all want details don't we? Think about it? We have phones that we can look up all kinds of details today at our immediate disposal. We have Internet and wi-fi hotspots in coffee shops, gyms, and all kinds of places! Our access to media of all kinds provides us with so many details that we've even coined a phrase that never occurred as little as 20 years ago and that is "information overload".

Honestly, like most people I want details (although I am still more of a big picture kind of guy) and it is often scary to just step into the hectic pace of life without my ducks all in a row! But that is often what our God wants of us - to trust Him with the details and simply step out in faith (not blind faith) and let Him set our agendas. But in order to do that there is a key that is revealed in the statement above and it's found in the often repeated biblical word... FOLLOW!

You see God does not say - you lead! He says to each one of us every day simply just "Follow me" It is the same thing that Jesus said to each disciple as He called them to join Him on the most amazing 3 year journey of all time! (See Matthew 4:18-22). 

The reality is we don't need all the details we only think we do and often that is simply just because we want to feel like we have some kind of control over our lives BUT God wants us to turn over the reins of our lives so He can lead us into the most amazing adventure we could possibly dream of, and it all starts with a simple step of faith in His direction!