My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are antithetical, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?

It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.

This isn’t the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God’s kingdom.

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. – Galatians 5:16-23ish, The Message

First of all, it’s scary to think how much of the second paragraph could describe my life most days.

I’m going to take the rest of this somewhat out of context, so humor me, but the idea of allowing myself to be led by the Spirit is a concept I’ve never really grasped. Maybe it’s actually very simple, but I just don’t understand how it works.

Whenever I’m asked (hypothetically) how you can tell when you’re being led by God to do or not do something, I’m stumped. There was a time when my answer would have been something like, “Everything seems to fall in place and it’s all just really, really good,” or, “You just have this overwhelming confidence that you know what or what not to do.”

I don’t answer like that anymore. The trouble is, I’ve only ever experienced that kind of confident knowing two times in my life that I’m aware of. Does that mean those were the only times I was listening and hearing? Or were those the only times God chose to interact with me in that specific way? I honestly don’t know.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t believe God speaks that way. I just think maybe it’s an exception and not the rule (if only there was a rule).

I have bigger qualms with saying “Everything seems to fall in place.” I just don’t believe that when God leads, he always leads you into a field of puppies and kittens. My prime example of this is the early church: They were led by the Spirit and as a result, they were beaten, imprisoned and killed.

This method of discerning God’s will is also way too compatible with my personality. If you don’t know me by now, I am not a go-getter. I am not driven by massive amounts of ambition. Sitting around waiting for God to drop things in my lap means I don’t have to seek. I don’t have to ask. I don’t have to knock. I don’t have to pursue.

And here’s where I start getting really confused. How long do I wait for God to just make things happen before I start asking him to make things happen? And how do I know if I’m supposed to just wait or ask? Or am I supposed to pursue my heart and make things happen (acknowledging that God has ultimate control, of course)?

If I wait for direction, and I believe I’m hearing no direction, do I just keep waiting and listening? Is the silence a direction that I should do what I think is best? And if I do what I think is best because I haven’t heard a clear direction, does that mean I lack the faith to keep waiting? How do I know when to wait and when to just act? And what’s worse: Hearing, acting and being wrong? Not hearing, acting on your best judgment and being wrong? Or not hearing, not acting and being wrong?

I think about these things all the time, but especially so as I’m approaching the end of my first year in California. I can’t help but look over the decisions that brought me out here, and the decisions I’ve made since. Most of the time I feel like moving out here was absolutely the right thing. Some days not so much. Same goes for what’s followed after my move.

I’m re-realizing that listening is pretty crucial … but hearing is the key. God grant me ears that hear.

I’ll wrap this up with another passage that particularly stands out for me tonight.

Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love. – Galatians 5:5-6, The Message

* A note on the title: I simply mean that finding good churches is a difficult task, and I wish it were an acceptable solution for me to avoid having to do so entirely. Also, I wrote this while frustrated and it shows. Understood? You may proceed.

Ever since I moved to California back in September, I’ve been involved with a small home church each Sunday evening. As the body of Christ, we share a potluck meal together and discuss whatever topics arise. Read on »

I haven’t had the best of all possible weeks. Nothing horrible, just not as enjoyable as I would have liked. Work has been great. I put in about a billion hours over the last month or two helping to develop a website that launched a few weeks ago. That meant several long days in a row, but I enjoyed it and the result was something I’m pretty proud of. Read on »

But the gate to life is very narrow. The road that leads there is so hard to follow that only a few people find it. - Matthew 7:14, Contemporary English Version

How frustrating.

So, it’s technically Saturday and today I am 29 years old. Yes, I realize I am one year away from 30. I didn’t think being that old would be so strange until just now when I typed the number. I don’t feel anywhere near as old as I am.

In the last month or so leading up to now, I’ve been thinking about Jesus at 29. Specifically, I’ve been wondering if he knew at this age that, in about a year, he’d be leaving home to begin feeding the poor, healing the sick, etc. If he did know, I wonder if he had any doubts about whether people would listen to someone so young him. Did he know he’d be dead in three years? (And yes, alive again, but I think the Bible shows Jesus was a bit hesitant about the whole dying thing just before his arrest. And I would like to know that Jesus may have struggled with it just as much as I do.)

Those thoughts made me examine this passage from the Bible with a different perspective.

Three days later, there was a wedding in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there. Jesus and his disciples were guests also. When they started running low on wine at the wedding banquet, Jesus’ mother told him, “They’re just about out of wine.”

Jesus said, “Is that any of our business, Mother—yours or mine? This isn’t my time. Don’t push me.”

- John 2:1-4 (The Message)

I dunno. Seems like he maybe needed a little push. Did his mother know what he was capable of? Was she maybe more confident than he was?

I used to read this passage to mean that Jesus knew the exact time his ministry was supposed to begin and that this wasn’t it. But then he goes ahead and turns the water into wine anyway. Why? Doesn’t really make sense to interpret it that way.

I much prefer the idea that, like me, Jesus didn’t always know ahead of time what God had in store for him. I would like to believe that Jesus experienced the same uncertainty of not knowing what God was doing at every turn.