The Lord led me to...

[Peter Debelak]

This, to some extent, is a Local Church-ism. Someone's made a decision - perhaps even controversial. Their safe guard is that the "lord led them" to do such-and-such.

I have read this here recently, even by former members. And I have employed this phrase myself, even recently. But what, exactly, does it mean and what should we take from it when others evoke it?

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My great uncle was a pretty renown Lutheran Theologan. My father and he would often get into healthly debates in the early exhuberant years of my dad's salvation (1970s, early 80s). Once, when my father was pointing out a number of biblical flaws with Lutheran practice and theology, my uncle responded quite strikingly. He said, "I have become well aware of the deep flaws in the Lutheran Church as practiced." My father asked "Then why do you stay?" His response was profound:

"Because this is where God called me."

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Other men I have know have utilized "God led me so..." is very different ways. "God led me" has often been a mechanism for either stasis or manipulation of others (e.g. "The Lord isn't giving me any peace about your decision" or "The Lord led me to start a rival church to yours, utilizing your own members).

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This notion of God's calling can't be quantified or verified. And, most interesting, sometimes when his calling seems clear it is NOT CLEAR what exactly we're called to. I know a brother who was convinced he was "led by the Lord" to start a fresh new church in a new city. He and some fellows labored hard and bore fruit. But four years later he was spent was certain that the Lord wasn't behind the continuation of the church. As someone who loved him, I suggested that perhaps the Lord did call him to move to that city (since he and his wife had developed an amazing community of neighbors) and perhaps even to start the church - but not for the churches sake but for his sake, to work through the experience of passion and failure.

So there's a two-part problem, when we're "called." First, are we really led by the Lord or just our own internal workings and Christian-cultural influences about what's "supposed" to happen. Second, even if we are called (which we can't know for certain), are we certain about what it is we are, in fact, called to?

My point in this writing is not to play the skeptic and Debbie-downer. I simply relay that we don't know.

Its a simple enough realization that we all know - but which we seem to forget when, in the midst of something or other, we are "led by the Lord."

My conclusion is not to dismiss anyone. It is simply to embrace His humiliation. And assume my own humility. I don't know.

He has led me time and again. I have understood that leading WRONG time and again. I have ignored that leading time and again. But He HAS led me. My humility to listen to those I don't automatically accept is a blessing to test my presumed "leading."

Without this kind of self-doubt and humility before Him, the kind of bravado of "He led me to..." of the Local Church can become an unconscious manipulative element. Not because of ill motives, but because it is not based in personal humility.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

This, to some extent, is a Local Church-ism. Someone's made a decision - perhaps even controversial. Their safe guard is that the "lord led them" to do such-and-such.

I have read this here recently, even by former members. And I have employed this phrase myself, even recently. But what, exactly, does it mean and what should we take from it when others evoke it?

In the context of "Local Church-ism" I think we should take the phrase with some scepticism. Because it is a convenient crutch for unexamined assumptions which may be flawed, even fatal. Like it's a way to avoid the ramifications of our own motives and thinking. The enemy loves to hide, and the unexamined life leads to behaviors that are deeply circumscribed in capacity to really cooperate with God.

Jesus told Peter, "You are young and strong and go wherever you want to go. But eventually others will bind you and take you away, to a place where you really don't want." In actuality, Peter was being driven by "others" all along. The "you go wherever you want" was actually indicating forces, ingrained and insinuated within Peter, driving him, apart from God. Eventually these would be manifested as what they really were, as "others", when the story finally played itself out. The trick is to identify these "others" early in the game, while we are still relatively young and strong. A deathbed confession is better than no confession at all, but how much of God's leading have we missed!

He has led me time and again. I have understood that leading WRONG time and again. I have ignored that leading time and again. But He HAS led me. My humility to listen to those I don't automatically accept is a blessing to test my presumed "leading."

Without this kind of self-doubt and humility before Him, the kind of bravado of "He led me to..." of the Local Church can become an unconscious manipulative element. Not because of ill motives, but because it is not based in personal humility.

Multiple, repeated, over-and-over again failures lead to some circumspection, some self-awareness of these subtle forces within, always lurking in darkened corners and waiting to emerge in some guise of "serving God". Jesus taught this: "People will kill you and think that they are doing service to God." How many times have I gone around (figuratively) killing people and thinking I was doing some beneficial thing! Look at how God's adversary is introduced into the narrative: "Now the serpent was more subtle than all the beasts of the field". Adam could see and name everything else, but couldn't identify the serpent 'till it bit him. The serpent will try to put something into you, often under the guise of a "Word from God", and if you don't examine it, it's to your peril.

Psalm 91 says of the Christ, "He will give His angels charge over you, lest you should strike your foot against a stone." True, but the devil's logic tries to get Jesus to jump (Matt 4:5-11). So the subtle one will take truth and try to do a jujitsu move and flip you with it. He will use your strength against you. All those books Watchman Nee had read couldn't save him from his concept of a "normal Church". And I'm not picking on Nee; I am surely as bad, or worse, in many regards. My repeated failures have made this one point plain to me.

So that's the Debbie downer part. The good part, to me, is that Psalm 1 starts out with a "not". Psalm 1 starts with a blessing, not a curse, but the blessing is to those who do not. Do not go in the way of the wicked. In other words, your blessing is not in what you do, but in what you don't do. Before you move, make sure you have "crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts", as Paul put it. Or, more correctly, make sure you realize that God has crucified you with Christ. Don't move, don't think, don't feel, don't plan, don't react, don't act. You are finito, kaput, finished, over, done.

At some point, as you "wait there in Jerusalem for the promise of the coming Holy Spirit", you will be awakened and placed on your feet. It may be a subtle stirring of the breeze through the leaves, gently rustling and whispering (1 Kings 19:12; John 3:8), or it may be a mighty rushing wind out of heaven (Acts 2:2) or an earthquake (Acts 16:26). But the Lord will lead you. His arm is not to short to save you. The only question (I am speaking to and of myself, of course, when I use the word "you") is, Are you willing to get out of the way, and let God's outstretched arm reach into the situation? Or is the devil going to provoke your flesh to act, and insinuate its 'passions and lusts' into the situation?

[awareness]

Peter, I'm just glad that the Lord has been faithful thru the years to lead me to food, water, and shelter ... and so many of my other needs.

I remember as a kid wondering why it is that it was always the preacher's son that was "Called by the Lord to Preach."

Many years later I discovered something : not all Christian sects and denominations practice being called by the Lord, that, it was a very Southern Baptist kind of thing. That's how indoctrinated I was. I thought all preachers were Called. That's all I grew up with.

Back to the preacher's son. It wasn't the Lord calling the son, of course, it was his parents expectations that was calling him.

And that brings us back to the Lord "leading" us, strangely, oddly, to what we need, and expect.

The Lord led me to marry her because he led me to subject her, sort of leading, of a closeted misogynist.

And how come we're the center of the Lord's leading? I have a friend from school days that I've known before he met the Lord and, was led by the Lord to become a Pentecostal preacher. Being thus objective it's plain to see that he was narcissistic before the Lord, and still is today. But now it is God that makes him the center of the universe ... cuz, to hear him tell it, the Lord leads him here, and there, and everywhere. He's at the center. His life is like that of the apostle Paul, to hear him tell it.

Some people grow up needing to be the center -- like Nee and Lee -- and use God, and "the Lord's leading" to accomplish it.

[Guest5]

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

So there's a two-part problem, when we're "called." First, are we really led by the Lord or just our own internal workings and Christian-cultural influences about what's "supposed" to happen.

God is real and alive and He has various ways and means of talking and speaking to the people of all ages. He speaks by the respective language that each of us in this world use to speak daily. By that token, how can we not be clarified if God is really speaking and leading us to do something in particular when we can talk to God and God can respond to us in our very own native tongue? If there is anything that brings us always to that uncertainty about God's calling, those are the things that we read in the bible which we continuously try to understand by our own wisdom. We seem to forget the fact that God is just a wireless call away from us at all times and even if we made a call to Him, the art of patiently waiting for to His response (in any manner He chooses to ) is more often neglected and substituted with our decision to look for same in the pages of the bible. How can we get to know God and His calling (to us) if we will continue to know God and His purpose to us by and through the pages of the bible which is not God in the first place? If Moses and Paul were both able to talk to God, why can't we today?

Originally Posted by Peter Debelak

Second, even if we are called (which we can't know for certain), are we certain about what it is we are, in fact, called to?

Definitely we can literally hear God if He is really calling us or not today, can't we? And we can ask Him what it is that He is calling us for and where it is that He is leading us to, and so on. Don't you think God will not respond to us should we ask Him those kind of questions?