How Do I Follow God’s Will in the Face of Two Good Options?
00:00:00.000 | Today is October 14th on the podcast and the date marks the 40th anniversary of Pastor
00:00:10.240 | John's late night wrestling over a huge decision.
00:00:14.240 | Should he leave seminary as a professor in order to take up a full-time pastorate in
00:00:18.880 | a local church?
00:00:19.880 | Pastor John, take us back to that season of life and I think it's related.
00:00:26.940 | We have a question here from a listener named Vanessa who asks, "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:29.800 | I hope you are well.
00:00:30.800 | I, like so many others, are thankful for your ministry.
00:00:33.440 | My question for you is this.
00:00:35.640 | Does God have a specific plan for my life or do I have freedom to choose what I want
00:00:40.320 | to do and God will work in that?
00:00:43.000 | Two good career options are in front of me.
00:00:44.760 | Neither would be bad or sinful.
00:00:46.380 | When faced with two good options, how have you made decisions?"
00:00:49.840 | And of course, in this context, take us back to that anniversary.
00:00:52.640 | Tony, this was really moving for me, for you to force me to think about this.
00:00:59.840 | I didn't know until you pointed it out that we were coming up on the 40th anniversary
00:01:06.680 | of that night in October 1979 when God did such an amazing work in my life.
00:01:14.120 | This is amazing.
00:01:17.520 | What a night it was.
00:01:19.300 | So I have in front of me here on my desk—I'm going to rattle it so you can hear it so you
00:01:24.440 | can hear the paper—I have in front of me the actual handwritten Blue Book pages in
00:01:31.540 | volume 25 of my thought notebook, which I began to keep in 1966.
00:01:37.960 | And this one is dated June 22, 1979 to November 21, 1979, so it contains this epic-making
00:01:49.240 | night for me personally of October 14.
00:01:54.780 | And I'm going to read part of it eventually, but in just a minute.
00:01:59.360 | But first, a word about Vanessa's question.
00:02:03.400 | "Does God have a specific plan for my life, or do I have freedom to choose what I want
00:02:11.360 | to do, and God will work in that?
00:02:15.440 | Two good career options are in front of me," that's what she says.
00:02:19.960 | "God's sovereign will for your life, Vanessa, is going to happen no matter what.
00:02:27.260 | The mind of a woman plans her way, but the Lord directs her steps," Proverbs 19.21,
00:02:33.760 | applied to you.
00:02:34.760 | You plan, He directs.
00:02:37.220 | Good to plan, He's decisive.
00:02:39.880 | His revealed will, His will of command, the will that He reveals for us to do in the Bible,
00:02:47.820 | is what He tells us to do in Scripture.
00:02:53.340 | You should always pursue that, always.
00:02:57.020 | But those commands do not specify explicitly which career to choose, right?
00:03:03.740 | So what do we do?
00:03:05.920 | We do six things.
00:03:07.780 | We make it our aim to be radically holy in every part of our lives.
00:03:12.900 | Two, we seek to be Bible-saturated, shaped through and through by Scripture.
00:03:19.700 | Three, we seek to know ourselves, the way God has made us, our spiritual gifts.
00:03:27.820 | Four, we seek to be aware of the needs of the world that we could touch.
00:03:35.020 | Five, we soak all of this in prayer every day for God's wisdom and leading.
00:03:42.900 | Psalm 25, especially valuable for this.
00:03:47.580 | And six, in it all, we live in a worshiping community of love so that at every step along
00:03:53.860 | the way, fellow believers are speaking into our lives.
00:03:59.060 | And then, with those six steps in place, there come these critical moments in our lives when
00:04:07.340 | two paths are in front of us, neither is sin.
00:04:12.420 | So one of those critical moments for me, one of the most pivotal moments of my life
00:04:17.260 | was midnight, almost, October 14, 1979.
00:04:23.420 | So I want to read just a few excerpts from the seven or nine pages that I wrote there
00:04:29.620 | so that you can get inside how God used my wrestling, and it might shed light on your
00:04:38.460 | own wrestling.
00:04:39.460 | I was employed as a teacher, professor of Bible at Bethel College, had worked there
00:04:44.980 | for six years, and the question was, "Would I leave this very happy and fruitful job and
00:04:54.620 | seek a pastorate?"
00:04:57.260 | Which I had never had before.
00:04:58.660 | Two good options, right?
00:05:00.380 | So here's what I wrote.
00:05:02.340 | I am closer tonight to actually deciding to resign at Bethel and take a pastorate than
00:05:08.740 | I have ever been.
00:05:10.780 | I'm not kidding.
00:05:12.740 | The urge is almost overwhelming.
00:05:16.300 | It takes this form.
00:05:18.260 | I am enthralled by the reality of God and the power of His Word to create authentic
00:05:24.380 | people.
00:05:25.380 | And I believe, I really believe, that God has made me a vessel of His Word, which when
00:05:32.020 | poured onto people, changes them in this direction.
00:05:37.960 | But I'm not wholly deluded.
00:05:39.860 | I know, I really know, I would despair as a pastor.
00:05:45.220 | I would despair that my people are not where I want them to be.
00:05:49.740 | I would despair at the ruptured study and the writing goals.
00:05:55.020 | I would despair at barren administrative details.
00:05:59.260 | I'm skipping something, you can hear the pages rattle.
00:06:03.980 | What then would I lose?
00:06:06.120 | I would lose the simplicity of task and routine in the college.
00:06:11.500 | My life and time would be much less my own.
00:06:15.700 | I would lose the serenity of undisturbed hours of study and self-imposed hours of leisure
00:06:23.140 | because the needs of the flock are unpredictable.
00:06:28.020 | I would lose the quiet of the study and trade it for hours in the car on the way to the
00:06:33.660 | hospital and to homes.
00:06:36.300 | I would lose the uniformity of responsibility and be swamped by dozens of different tasks,
00:06:44.500 | many of which would no doubt be distasteful unless and until my palate changed.
00:06:51.580 | I would lose the collegial stimulation of fellow theologians in return for a draining
00:06:57.660 | ministry to the hungry.
00:07:00.100 | I would lose an almost total occupation with theological subject matter and inherit the
00:07:06.340 | press for programs and functions.
00:07:10.220 | I would lose the ease of having to reckon with no visible failure.
00:07:16.380 | If I fail with students, they pass on quickly.
00:07:21.140 | But in a church, I must reckon with the possibility nothing happens.
00:07:25.860 | People become discontented.
00:07:27.580 | No one is being one to Christ.
00:07:29.740 | Old animosities remain unhealed.
00:07:32.860 | If I only think of all the satanic might-bes, I despair already.
00:07:39.420 | But is this any way to make a choice?
00:07:44.700 | Great God, what is faith?
00:07:48.340 | If not trusting you for the life-transforming work of your spirit through the ministry of
00:07:56.820 | the Word.
00:07:58.140 | I think what has happened is a gradual clarification of what my highest values are and the most
00:08:05.580 | fruitful way to achieve them.
00:08:09.140 | Those values are to see the Word of God produce people of great faith and great love.
00:08:15.580 | That is why Paul stayed and did not set sail for Christ in Philippians 1.
00:08:21.900 | "For your advancement and the joy of your faith," he said.
00:08:26.500 | This was how he magnified Christ in his body by life.
00:08:31.820 | And that is my greatest goal of all, to magnify and exalt and display Christ in the world
00:08:38.260 | and in heaven.
00:08:40.100 | By seeing people transformed into new creatures of love and faith through his Word and Spirit.
00:08:47.900 | This moment of indecision is real and makes me feel on the brink of doing something that
00:08:55.300 | could be so revolutionary for me and for some group of people that I do not want it to be
00:09:04.620 | set aside now and say, "Oh, it will pass.
00:09:08.660 | You have felt this way before.
00:09:11.460 | You get over it.
00:09:13.540 | You realize it was just a moment of dissatisfied fantasy."
00:09:17.740 | No.
00:09:20.820 | The recurrence is now too frequent, and tonight, it is almost midnight now, too strong.
00:09:29.900 | I will seek counsel and pray.
00:09:32.980 | My last word is this, I cannot decide now, but I know which side I want to win, the pastorate.
00:09:43.220 | That's the end of my journal entry.
00:09:47.660 | And before I went to bed, maybe an hour later, the die was cast.
00:09:53.860 | All that remained was to see if my wife, Noelle, felt the same in the morning, and she did.
00:10:01.580 | And in June the next year, we began a 33-year pastorate at Bethlehem.
00:10:09.380 | So that's how it happened for me.
00:10:11.700 | God is faithful.
00:10:12.700 | So, Vanessa, may he guide you.
00:10:15.300 | He will.
00:10:16.300 | Yeah, amen.
00:10:17.300 | That's incredible.
00:10:18.300 | Thank you for taking us back into that season and recounting for us that long night, Pastor
00:10:21.260 | John, and what you learned and what we can apply from it.
00:10:24.260 | That's really helpful.
00:10:25.260 | And thanks for subscribing to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app or on YouTube.
00:10:31.060 | We appreciate having you along as you wrestle through all the complicated decisions of life.
00:10:36.540 | Well, should you stop listening to this podcast, and when and why?
00:10:42.700 | I don't know what sort of question that is.
00:10:44.500 | It's kind of crazy to ask it, but it's a question I'm going to ask Pastor John next time.
00:10:48.180 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll see you Wednesday when I ask Pastor John, "When
00:10:53.300 | should I stop listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast?"
00:10:56.820 | That should be interesting.
00:10:57.820 | We'll see you then.
00:10:57.820 | [End]
00:10:58.320 | 1. What are your thoughts on the title "When should I stop listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast?"
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