In the lead up to and since the recent Assembly meetings I have been thinking a lot about how we know we are doing God's will when we make decisions. At Assembly there were many different decisions that we delegates had to make, from simple, easy to understand and put into practise ones-- like the decision to give Members in Association full membership rights or some of the changes to the Basis of Union to encompass the new Specified Ministries that have been introduced since Union,--- to the very difficult area of homosexuality in our church leaders.

How do we know that we have acted in the wisest way? How do we know that we have done what God would have us do? What help can we get in order to make the right choice?

It is not only in places like the Assembly that we have to make wise decisions but decision making is an integral part of our daily life. How we think, how we act, how we pray (if we pray), will all determine how we tackle the everyday personal choices that we have to make, as well as the corporate decisions that we make as a body of Christians.

One of the greatest difficulties is trying to find God's purpose for our lives. Most of us believe that God has a plan for us, but our uncertainties come from not knowing what that is.

We get disheartened when we read of Christians who seem to know without any doubts just what God's will is for them- no doubts or falterings for them. Sometimes these people have seen visions, had dreams, heard voices or seen signs. Most of us don't have these dramatic signs so often feel as though we are setting out on a journey without a good map or signposts to guide us.

Sometimes we can be like the cotton picker in Alabama, in the days before mechanical pickers. He was working in the hot sun, getting more and more tired. In desperation he threw down the cotton, looked up to the sky and said" 0 Lord, de cotton am so grassy, de sun am so hot, de work am so hard, dat I believe that I am called to be a preacher"!! This is not pointing to the fact that preachers have an easy life!! As Malcolm Fraser said "Life was not meant to be easy', God never promised an easy journey, He simply promised to be with us and help us on the way.
The point is that giving up our life to God is not an opting out of life, of giving up on the hard task of living by saying God's will will be done, whatever our response, when we do not make any effort to actually find out what and how God wants us to work, for Him.
Faith does not reduce us to mere robots or puppets. We are challenged to find out what is God's will, and then to actually do it We must be proactive, rather than passive. Thou shalt' rather than the old puritan dogma of 'Thou shalt not'.

Paul had quite a bit to say about the will of God, which you can look up for yourselves, in Acts 22, Ephesians 5 Colossians 1 and 4.

I believe that there are two aspects to the will of God:
1. A general will for all people all of the time, to keep moral laws and to grow more like Jesus. This aspect of God's will is likely to be found in the Bible, but we have to be careful to understand that cultural differences and mores can change the interpretation of His will.
2. A particular will for individuals, such as who we marry, our vocation, etc. This is rarely found in the Bible, although sometimes general guidelines can be found. Such as deciding whether a career in dubious ethical practises is right For example, some people could find working for genetic engineering scientists could compromise their Christian principles.

So how do we find out what is God's will for us?

We can pray:
We can analyse a problem or dilemma when we talk to God about it.
Archbishop William Temple noticed that guidance was greater or lesser in proportion to his prayerfulness. Perhaps we don't know the will of God because we don't ask for it!

We can think:
We must not shut our minds or our intelligence off. Often common sense can be God's guiding us in situations where we often think we need complicated answers. We can often be an evangelist (in the proper sense of the word) in our own normal everyday life, but we tend to think in grand scale revival type situations instead and we can't possibly do that
We can wait:
God's time scale is not our time scale. Instead of expecting results today we can use the waiting time to improve our skills and then seeing the long-term effects of our witnessing.

We can ask:
We should rely on the council of trusted Christians who have proven their wisdom, but we have to evaluate the advice and tailer it to our own situation. We should be open minded, not thinking we know the answer beforehand, and expecting God to endorse it.

We can obey:
The Bible is full of verses telling us to obey the Will of God. He only reveals His will to those who obey. It's a bit like the chicken and the egg, one is dependent on the other, but which comes first? Obedience to the example set by Jesus is a good start.

If we do all these things, and allow God to plant his wishes into our hearts, minds and spirits, we can be sure that whatever we feel led to do will be achievable. We all know the times when we have said that something was not meant to be- difficulties have arisen and prevented us doing something have been taken to be God saying 'no'. Conversely, when things flow easily we take that to mean that God is behind our actions.

To return to my original thoughts about doing the will of God in the Assembly decisions.
Before Assembly, members knew that we wanted Consensus. We believed that the will of God would be apparent if we could all agree on the decisions taken. This entailed obeying the spirit of God as He led us. We prayed in small groups, we prayed in the Assembly as a whole. We thought about the different reports and pondered the implications of the recommendations. We waited for the right time to make decisions. Sometimes we could decide at the presentation of a report, other times we went into our small groups, often more than once, to deliberate, not wanting to be hasty. We asked the advice of various wise people, as well as our God. Not once did we have to revert to formal voting. Surely this is indicative that the Will of God was being done? If we don't have a preconceived idea of what God's will is, it is easier to hear His voice, for our minds are open and our ears can hear his still small voice of calm. Consensus has been a lesson for me in determining one way in which we can know what is the Will of God.

It is my prayer that the church as a whole will understand that Assembly endeavoured to follow the will of God throughout it's decision making processes. I pray that we will allow His will to guide us into the future and strengthen us as we witness to Him in our community.

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