What Is God's Will - Sea To Shining Sea

When I was maybe 11 years old (My mom and I have been working to try to figure out the exact year, this is our best guess), my Mom started reading a book aloud to my siblings and I. Then, for whatever reason (It might have been becoming too in-depth for the younger ones), my parents let me take it with me to camp to finish on my own! It was the first adult book I ever read! And pretty soon, I saved up my money and book #2 was the first book I ever bought myself! I don’t have specific memories of the rest of the series – except #4. It came in one of those clothing boxes like you get from Younkers or JC Pennys as a Christmas gift along with a Precious Moments pendent on a lavender ribbon. Whenever the other came though, I was hooked. Each book fascinated me. I proudly displayed the entire series on the top shelf of my one bookshelf for years. It was one of the first things moved to the new house when my family moved when I was 14. I always appreciated them, but not until growing up, did I see the real value in them. 

I have recommended them before due to their impressive spiritual content. I don’t always agree with the author’s theology, but every point of theology I DO agree on, I am impressed with how he handles – and there’s a lot more I agree with than I disagree with! As I re-read the series recently, I found myself fascinated all over again. 

But one conversation between the main character and her stepmother particularly caught my attention. It’s an issue I have somewhat wrestled with myself lately – how can I know what God wants of me? What does walking in His will look like? How do I follow His direction? This is the question Corrie is wrestling with in Sea To Shining Sea, book #5. She has been asked to write more articles for the newspaper about the election, specifically working to help get Abraham Lincoln elected. She’s also been asked to start doing speech making for the cause. Not everyone around her believes in the cause though. Some are strongly opposed. What is right? What does God want of her? Here is the conversation she has with her stepmother about it:

“You see, that’s what I am getting at. Both my heavenly Father and Mr. Parrish together contributed to that remaking process in me. But eventually I did change. Eventually I learned the new ways. And now, after all these years I am truly an altogether new and changed person. I have matured in many ways. As a Christian, as a daughter of God, although He is still with me always – inside my heart and right beside me – I no longer require the same kind of training I did back then. I am God’s daughter, I am also a grown woman. I think God treats me in many cases like an adult rather than a child. Whereas, as first He had to show me everything and had to take my hand and literally g

uide me through every step of life, He doesn’t have to do that anymore. He has trained me and in the same way that a parent gradually releases a child to walk on his own, I think God begins to release us – not to walk independently of Him, but to walk beside Him as He has shown us without His having to direct every single move we make. In obedience to Him, we walk along the path He has given us to walk without having to stop to consider every step. Does that make sense?”

“I think so,” I said.

“It’s very difficult to explain what I mean,” Amelda went on. “I don’t mean to sound as though I think I want to walk independently, or that God isn’t there with every step I take. I do try to bring Him into all aspects of my life, even more than I did at the beginning. But the more we mature as Christians, the more of our decisions He leaves in our hands – knowing that we are walking along the road He has placed us in, and according to the ways and habits and attitudes that  He has trained into us.”

“In other words,” I said, “He might be leaving part of the decision of what I should do in my hands?”

“Exactly. If He didn’t want you to write, I am confident He would let you know it very clearly, and I am equally confident you would obey His voice. But since He has led you into writing in the past, I think He will very often let you make the decision yourself as to what specific things you write about. He may give you a stronger sense of leading at some times than others. But there will also be times when He will trust you to go either way when you’re facing a particular decision, and He will make either one work out for the best”

“Hmmm…that is a new way to look at it.”

“God is our Father of course. We must look to  Him for everything. We can’t breathe a single breath without Him. We can’t take a step without Him. Yet it is one of the many paradoxes of the Christian life that He also entrusts us to a sort of partnership with Him. As we walk along with Him, keeping our hand tightly in His, it is as if He says to us, ‘My son, my daughter, I have trained you and taught you and placed my life and spirit inside you. Now go… walk in the confidence of your sonship. I will always be at your side; if you err or misstep, my hand will be right there to help you up and guide you back into the middle of the path. But until then, walk on with the boldness that comes from having my Spirit inside you.”

“Do you think that applies to big decisions too?” I asked. “Things like whether or not I should get involved in this election?”

“I think we always have to pray and ask the Father for His specific guidance,” replied Amelda. “Then the time comes when we must make a decision.”

“And if we don’t seem to hear a definite answer?”

She thought a minute, the answered. “There are two ways, it seems to me, in which God can answer our prayers and direct us. He can open doors, or He can close doors. If we’re standing still, facing a fork in the road, facing a decision to be made, He can either open a door going in one direction or close the door going in the other. Or, if we don’t happen to see the fork, or don’t see any possibilities clearly, it has always seemed best to me to keep moving and praying until He either opens or closes a door. I’ve even prayed something like this sometimes: ‘Lord, I don’t know for sure if this is the way You want me to go. It seems to be best right now, and I think this is what You want, so I’m going to keep moving cautiously ahead until You say otherwise. Please Lord, if this is not what You want me to do, slam the door shut in my face.’”

“Is that what you did before the election four years ago?” I asked.

“I suppose it was something like that, although there was, as I now look back on it, an ample supply of my own wishful thinking involved in what I thought was God’s leading. Yes, I thought I was going in the right directions, so I moved ahead. But then when God made some things clear in my thinking about my relationship with your father, I knew He was closing the door.”

“And so maybe Cal Burton’s coming like he has is the Lord’s way of opening the door to what I’ve been in doubt about all this time.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit,” said Amelda

“I’ve been thinking about Davy Crockett’s saying, ‘Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.’ Maybe I’ve been expecting the Lord to be more direct than He wants to be.”

“There’s wisdom in that motto,” said Amelda. “Yet, on the other hand, we don’t always have the luxury of being absolutely sure before we have to go ahead. In the absence of any possible leading by God, sometimes we have to launch out according to what circumstances seem to be saying, and prayerfully trust God to open and close doors as we go along.”

See? That’s why I recommend this book, this series, this author! If you want to be made to THINK deeply, to be challenged, pick up a Michael Phillips book!