When the Bumps in the Road Match the Beat of the Music
It wasn’t weird for me to giggle; I was a child, and what I had observed had a humorous quality to it, even if to most grown adults it seemed fairly mundane. I had noticed that the car in which we were riding, even if only for a few short seconds, was bouncing along with the bumps in the road in unison with the beats of the music on the radio. As I headbanged to whichever tune it was, it seemed for a brief moment that our car wanted to join in on the fun. It hadn’t dawned on me yet at that young age that such a thing could be possible – I had finally been exposed to the phenomenon of coincidence. Whereas I think many children probably experience something like that and then proceed to forget about it, my mother said something to me to explain the moment that has stuck with me to this day. “It’s a sign that God is there, Thomas,” she said.
Exercising discernment in the Christian life has got to be one of the most challenging things a person can do. While the world uses tarot cards, Youtube psychologists, and so-called scientific studies to determine their paths forward, the Bible teaches us instead to seek God to find clarity for our lives. Despite how often you’ll hear church people say, “God told me to do this” or, “I heard God say to do that,” it would seem He doesn’t speak audibly very often. To see Him clearly can be a rare occurrence, and understanding how God works and what His ultimate will is can be so baffling that we Christians have left room in our faith to label certain things as “mysteries”, never likely to be fully understood by mankind, at least on this side of eternity. Nonetheless, in faith, we ask God for clarity and direction when we need it, and we try to scoop what we need out of the silence that follows those requests, even if things don’t stay silent for that long. If only it were easy to go through the process of discernment. Oh, how I have wished that discernment was as simple as it was when I was a little child where all I had to do to find God was see where the bumps in the road matched the beat of the music.
How He Taught Us to Pray
To seek God for understanding or direction is inevitably to seek Him in prayer. Ultimately, we must bring our request, predicament, or confusion to His feet and ask Him for help. As we find ourselves in those situations, we will remember that Jesus taught us to “pray then like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9-13, ESV).
We see here that one of prayer’s chief purposes is to align our hearts and minds with God’s. In this regard, it is less about receiving and more about submitting. Who is our god? Is it the one and only God, or is it an idol? Whose way is the right way? Is it God’s, or is it ours? If we receive direction from Him, will we take it? If He asked us to do something, would we do it? Jesus’s answer is, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name [and your name alone]. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven [regardless of the desires of my own will].” We have to acknowledge that He is God and that we are not. This is a process that can take some time, but consistent prayer with God with the intention of keeping these truths at the forefront of our lives is important because this understanding is the light by which we will be able to see everything else. Why would we want to pray for an opportunity in our lives to work out if we knew that it wasn’t what God wanted? We wouldn’t pray for that, but we won’t know if that opportunity falls in that category unless our hearts are in line with His.
Once we have submitted and committed to God yet again, Jesus shows us that we are free to ask for what we need. We require daily provision, reconciliation with this God through His gracious forgiveness, and protection against those who would try to harm our relationship with Him. This is an interesting process because, if our hearts are changed by our time with Him, our desires tend to change, too. For instance, we may think our daily bread resembles one thing before prayer, but by returning to God and reforming our minds in prayer, we may come to realize our daily bread is something else entirely. There is an argument to be made, if the Word says to “delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4, ESV), that the desires He fulfills will be different than what we originally desired. In this regard, what a wonderful promise it is that we will find God when we desire Him, regardless of our situation (Jeremiah 29:13). Jesus told us that God is a good father, and “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11, ESV) If we have done our best in earnestness to align our hearts with God through prayer, and if we ask Him for direction for our lives that will honor Him and bring us closer to Him, we have to trust that He will give that to us.
The Spirit Fills the Silence That Follows
I have never received a letter or phone call or text message from God; I’m willing to bet nearly nobody has. I have received letters, phone calls, and text messages, however, that showed me He was there. While the moments after our petitions are silent, it does not mean that God is inactive. We often don’t see what God is doing until He has done it. Think for a moment: How many stories have you heard where your brother or sister in Christ prayed for something, and soon thereafter learned that their dream job had just become available, the person who would become their spouse had just moved to the city, or the doctor they had needed to see had finally got an opening. These are not things that happen overnight, and yet, we didn’t see what God was doing until He was done. One of the biggest reasons God gave us His Holy Spirit when we became reconciled to Him was so that we could see the truth. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as such: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you” (John 16: 13-14, ESV). The truth when it comes to discernment is that God is working on our behalf in a million different ways for His infinite glory – the Spirit’s job is to help us see how God is working. The only thing for us to do is trust that He will reveal the things that we need to know at the time we need to know them.
We usually refer to the uncanny workings of God as open or closed doors; it’s a funny thing, really, since to see if a door is open or closed we generally have to get up and try to use it. In that regard, discernment really is now like it was back when I was a little child, requiring less understanding than I usually think and more faith than I am usually comfortable with. We don’t worship signs and wonders, extrapolating the meaning of the alignment of the planets or interpreting omens as if the world is one giant message to the keen observer. We do worship a good and loving God of clarity, though, who makes clear paths for our own good. Spend enough time with the Holy Spirit, and you’ll find that the silence that follows our prayers is usually there so we won’t miss how the bumps in the road match the beat of the music. Trust that God will make a way, look for the clarity in how the puzzle pieces start falling together, and don’t be afraid to take a leap of faith when you have done everything that you can to discern. He won’t let you go off the road if you read it wrong – He loves you too much for that.
What We Learned from Our Most Recent Silence
While it may come as a surprise, more than usual, we at More Than Sundays have been wrestling with the silence waiting for God’s will to become clear with respect to our ministry. We wanted to leave you here with this lesson in light of that and also explain that we believe the time for this blog ministry has come to a close. This article signifies the end of the More Than Sundays blog at Cross Creek Church; I am not one to say that it will be gone forever because I cannot say what God has in store for the future, but I am one to say that, after prayerful consideration by the leadership of the blog, we believe it is time for us to move on to other things. Personally, I have cherished the writing ministry here at the church as it has both given those with the gift of writing an outlet to do it for the glory of God and also produced fruit in the lives of those it touched (based on the feedback I have received). I am grateful for the opportunity to have served as the editor for the blog, I am thankful for the readership you all have graciously offered us, and above all I am grateful for the God that I continually learned about and grew closer to as I worked on it.
I would be remiss in this moment not to thank those who have helped with the blog since we last posted an update about it. Gracey Armstrong and Cristina Bahre have been stalwart contributors by God’s grace to our efforts here, and Laura Jeffries and John Anthony have provided us support when many of our original writers had moved on to what God had for them next. Nobody would have read our blog if Meghyn Godinez had not helped us edit and post the articles, and Pastor Michael’s advice and wisdom helped propel the blog where it needed to go during its time. If you see or know one of these people, please give them a heartfelt congratulations for their efforts the last couple of years, and please pray for all of us as we enter the next chapters of our walks with God, wherever those may be.
Our goal at More Than Sundays was fairly “on the nose”; we wanted to help people live their faith more than just going to church on Sundays. Our philosophy has been to provide foundational teaching on basic concepts in the faith, hoping that removing the barriers of confusion around some of the simple and practical would help make following Jesus more reachable and inviting. If you read any of our material, I pray that this was a reality for you. Even if our pens failed, I know we served a God who didn’t, and I am confident whatever the case may be that good came out of it for His glory. May God bless you abundantly, and may you be willing to follow where He leads. If my experiences here on the blog are any indicator, it will be most worth it.