Musings on the Daily Lectionary

I've always been envious (and also a bit suspicious) of those who seem to have a very clear sense of what God wants them to do, of God's will for them. I say that because I often struggle to understand what God intends for me. Even with help and advice from a Spiritual Director, I often feel quite in the dark.

That makes today's reading in Acts especially interesting to me. In it we see Paul, who seems to have a direct line to God if anyone ever did, have one and perhaps two false starts as he seeks to travel about sharing the good news about Jesus. He is forbidden to go to Asia; exactly how is not said. And when he tries to go to Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus stops him. Once again we don't hear exactly how this works. Finally, Paul has a vision (a dream perhaps?) of a man calling him to come over the Macedonia.

I am especially intrigued by the account of what follows. "When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them." Now perhaps I'm making something out of nothing here, but after this vision, Paul and his buddies are described as "being convinced that God had called us..." Being convinced doesn't sound like absolute certainty to me. It sounds like they would try to go to Macedonia, but if prevented, they would then conclude that they had misunderstood.

In my own faith life, I would like to have more certainty. A burning bush in the back yard would be nice; perhaps an angel or two coming to the office and laying out a vision for the congregation. But it doesn't seem to work that way. We are required to do our best to understand what God's call is and then act on it, realizing that God may redirect us when we've gotten our instructions mixed up.

For the life of me, I wouldn't do it this way if I was God, but I have to assume that God's methods are better than mine. And based on my reading of today's scripture, it seems that we need to be both bold and humble when it comes to answering God's call. We do need to act, to move, to step out based on what may often be a rather vague set of instructions and directions. Waiting for God to send us Mapquest directions that say, "Go 1 mile south, turn left, talk to the person..." will likely mean waiting a long time, maybe forever. But at the same time, we can't be arrogant when we think we have discerned God's will. We may head out on that journey only to prevented by the Spirit.

I once was told by someone in strategic planning that one of the most difficult steps for some groups is to stop planning and start doing. Maybe that's what's going on in Acts. We have to move forward while the destination is still a bit fuzzy, and trust that God will provide the mid-course corrections along the way.

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