"Daddy, does that mean you're not in God's will right now?"

Juliana told me in February of 2009 that she felt like God was calling her into full-time foreign missions.  This was both exciting and scary for me. I wanted her to be sure because to travel that road without God would be stupid but to travel that road with God with be an adventure.  I set an appointment with her to teach her a thing or two about discerning the will of God. 

We sat in my basement office on the old church pew going through a book that had helped me many years ago.  I told her that now that I was a committed Christ-follower that the most frustrating thing in life had become knowing the will of God.  I had come to the point of desiring obedience and the ability to obey (Holy Spirit) more than any time in my life (funny how far I still need to travel).  Anyway, I told her since I had graduated from seminary two months back that I had been crying out to God to reveal to me what His will for life was to be.  I was chasing MY passion to be the Associate Pastor of Evangelism and Prayer at the church where we were members.  I told her that I was waiting and that it was frustrating. 

I will never forget Juliana interrupting me, looking up at me and saying "Daddy, if you're waiting on the will of God, does that mean you're not in God's will right now?"

Wow.

I told her that she knew far more about what I was trying to teach her and sent her upstairs.  I immediately crawled onto the floor and laid on my face and cried.  I apologized to the Lord for not realizing where I was. I was right in the center of God's will.  I had come to Bartow County to plant a church(es). We had been here for 8 months and I was antsy to get on with MY role which God had for me. I remember Christ picking my face up and telling me to look at the chair behind my desk.  He said " Birch, rest in Me.  Sit in that chair. Let Me guide, lead and direct you.  You have been to seminary but you still have much to learn.  Spend time with your family, continue to spend time with Me, let Me bring people around you that will help Me with the ministry that I will ultimately have you do in Bartow County.

It is now August of 2010, a year and a half later.  I have rested.  I have taught Sunday School, mentored teachers, filled the pulpit in over twenty churches and been an interim pastor. I have spent time with my family. I have dated my wife and my children.  I have realized that my work at 84 Lumber is my life-blood financially and a ministry as well. 

I recently read a book given to me by Ms. Sarah Jane from a church where I was interim. The author is Watchman Nee and it is entitled Sit, Walk, Stand.  It is a simple commentary Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus.  God continues to teach me and I want to share some excerpts from this book:

If the life of a Christian is to be pleasing to God it must be properly adjusted to him in all things.  Too often we place the emphasis in our own lives upon the application of this principle to some single detail of our behaviour or our work for Him.

Our Position in Christ--Sit
Our Life in the World--Walk
Our Attitude to the Enemy--Stand

God raised up Christ and made us to sit with Him. I was trying to walk before I had truly sat (rested) with Christ. That day in my basement with my daughter, God taught me that I needed to sit just as His principle from the very beginning.  In creation, God worked from the first to the sixth day and rested on the seventh. Adam was created on the sixth day. God's seventh day was Adam's first.  Adam had no part in the work.  Adam began His life on the Sabbath; for God works before He rests, while man must first enter into God's rest,and then Man can work with God's guidance. It was because God's work of creation was truly complete that Adam's life could begin with rest.  And here is the Gospel;  that God has gone one stage further and has also completed the work of redemption, and that we need nothing whatever to merit it, but can enter by faith directly into the values of His finished work.

God was waiting till I ceased "doing."When I ceased "doing" then God began.

God has moved in so many ways, through the Great Commission Initiative, storying, Celebrate Recovery, The Bartow Baptist Association, David Franklin, pastors, friends and family.  God has challenged me to rest in Him, to sit.  For those who know me, I think I have done a pretty good job of that over the last year and a half. 

God has asked me to walk in the world now.  He is planting "Church of the Underground", house churches through me.  Simultaneously, He is planting a Celebrate Recovery Group through me that prayerfully will spin the lost into these house churches.

God, You sat me down when I was unable to walk.  Now lend me your hand and lead me to walk with You in these days. Amen