AS WE enter the year 2020, let us pray for 20/20 spiritual vision that we may clearly see God’s direction for this year.
As a realist, I want to believe that this year will offer more challenges than the previous year, that’s why the urgency of prayer and the need for more time with God’s word. We all need to walk discerningly, not just skilfully, seeing ourselves doing God’s purposes for our lives down to the very specific of our routine. Spiritual discernment is not just about making right decisions, being afraid to commit mistakes, living a life consciously aware and constantly being awakened by the PRESENCE OF GOD. There are issues in life that require wisdom to know the difference between good and godly.
All, who by faith trust Christ, are sons and daughters of Abba. Spiritual discernment is not a solo pursuit...it must be connected to the community of the redeemed where discernment is exercised as a collective exercise of a community committed to prayer and scripture.
It is important that we don’t over-spiritualize discernment because many practical considerations have to be taken. Among these is the deliberate adjustment of our schedules to give way for more prayer and time for personal and congregational moments of solitude...just as our Lord Jesus Christ gave time for prayer very early every morning (Mark 1:35), just as the early church did not forsake the gathering of fellow-believers to pray and know God through the preaching of His words. We must literally lift up our calendars to God and surrender time intended for prayer. Let our church be a venue by which God can meet us in prayer. Make a commitment to pray more and allow the Lord to do a radical subtraction of all our unnecessary involvements that entangle us to be pressured by religious demands that lead us to perform unbelievable tasks that have nothing to do with our intimacy with God. Be aware of serving solo where there is a bogus sense of freedom to do things your way...rather be accountable to a community where we serve God as a body...not as somebody exclusive.
Take time to read Psalm 131, consisting only of three verses yet very spiritually penetrating and revealing of our tendency to become the persons we are not expected to be. For the next 365 days, may God allow us to be thirsty again for Him and hunger for His words. Let us walk the pathway of powerlessness and discover the wonders of being ordinary and let us eagerly live out our desire for obscurity so that we may know the Omnipotent One. We may no longer have literal 20/20 eyesight but believe me, we can desire 20/20 eyesight of faith! Straight from my heart, I write.