God's Sovereignty & Decision Making Series

I eventually have to make one choice.

So we keep in mind these other five imperatives(?) and finally are confident that we are not on our own: we are not without Christ, without the scriptures, without the Holy Spirit, we are a mixture of divine and human responsibility.

The imperative is Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done …

We need to plan but we need to remember the Sovereign Plan

and whilst we don’t have the MICRO detail of the Sovereign Plan

we do have the MACRO details

• We know God’s Character

• We know the attributes of the Kingdom

• We know how believers should live

• We know that God desires that all will be saved.

And because God is Sovereign ….

we also know that God’s Will ‘will be done’ even when we muck up.

So we need to be both open to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, yet confident in our own knowledge that God wants us to use the gifts he has given us to discern and make good decisions.

You know … Heather and I grew up around the corner from each other. I was a member of the local Catholic Church. Heather’s dad was the vicar of the local Anglican Church. I had indirectly met her dad, visited her church and been involved in planning inter-Church activities with her congregation. Heather and I went to the same primary school … and yet … I had never met her.

My Church had a Parish Carnival every year in November. Heather and I had a mutual friend, who had talked to her about me … she brought Heather to that Carnival in November 1997. When we were introduced I was distracted with a stall that I was working on and the fact that I had to leave soon for an important meeting.

I politely said, ‘Hi, nice to meet you.’ And got on with what I was doing.

Almost a year passed and Heather started coming to our Young Adults Group. I thought she was quite impressive in her depth of faith and maturity. I began to get to know her, but soon afterwards her family moved to Cairns. And I remember thinking how could I have missed the fact that this very cool person, has lived around the corner from me all these years?

Two years later, Heather moved back from Cairns … and I remember saying to her …

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed you until I saw you again.

And the hallmark of our growing friendship had been a mutual respect for each other’s faith, the call to ministry and an ability to just sit and talk for hours. Both of us had prayed that God would bring someone into our lives who would share a passion for faith and ministry.

But life was complicated … I was going through a messy break-up with someone that Heather was acquainted with … I was employed in the parish and Heather was a member of the Young Adults Group … Heather was working through the grief of leaving home and starting a new life in Melbourne … and what’s more one week before we got together,

a vicious, UNTRUE rumour was spread about me that convinced Heather that she really didn’t want anything to do with me. Things were complicated. The doors seemed closed.