Moving Day

My newest daughter Michelle (Dustin's wife) on move in day to their first home together.

Most aspects of being my age I would rather do without, but there is finally one advantage I have found in growing older. For the past 40 years when moving day came, I was always invited. Typically I was the biggest one around and more importantly I had a truck and at least 1 trailer, still do. It did not take long to learn that when you are putting furniture into a new home, never, I repeat never put it where is should go. No matter where you put the couch, the new bride / woman of the house will want to see what it looks like on the other wall. Then you get to move it there and back! You can easily cut down 1/3 of the moving if you put it on the wrong wall first so you won’t have to move it back! I have no objection to the woman of the house placing furniture anywhere she wants to nor do I object to her right to change her mind, after all it is here house. The real danger of this kind of thinking is when it is transferred into the spiritual realm of life. We really DON’T have the right to decide or really offer an opinion of where the furniture of life goes. The first sign that there is a problem is when we are faced with some sort of decision and try as we might, cannot discover the will of the Lord for that decision. Andrew Murray recommends this:

There is a general will of God for all His children, which we can, in some measure, learn out of the Bible. But there is a special individual application of these commands—God’s will concerning each of us personally, which only the Holy Spirit can teach. And He will not teach it, except to those who have taken the vow of obedience.

Here’s the Papa pondering version of Murray: Unless we have taken the vow of obedience, we cannot know God’s will (path) in our lives. God offers direction, not selection. We really only want advice, we want the final choice, the right to choose. How often in scripture did God ever offer a choice as opposed to reveal the next step on the path? If there is no intention to walk His way, there is no real reason to light up the path.