In Your Doing Good Do Good.
So many preachers will tell you if you are not sure what to do in a given case you should pray about it. I'm going to say though that I don't think this is the right advice. God is against divination. Asking God what should I do is just a way of saying I'm not going to think about what I should do I'm going to let you decide. I think God wants us to think about what to do. He wants us to come up with ways to do the right thing. Divination is just done when someone wants to do one thing and they hope that God will tell them it's ok. Also it removes the important responsibility of actively loving our neighbor. We shouldn't just help others when they ask for help but we should be actively seeking ways to help others. We should ask God: please give me ideas on how I can help someone. Give me opportunities to help. Help me to think of ways to do good. Help me to think of the best possible ways to help others and promote your kingdom. I think he wants us to actively brainstorm and take the initiative.
Look at David: God didn't complain to any prophet "Oh that my people would build me a house." David came up with the idea all on his own without any prompting from God. How is it wrong to do things for God's Kingdom that he didn't lay on our heart. Now if after he was told "You your son shall build it" He continued obstinately to continue his plan he would have been doing wrong. But if the prophet had said nothing to him then would he have been wrong to build God's temple? I think not. I think he would have been blessed just as God blessed him. God blessed David for coming up with something to do for God. I think God blessed him and prevented him from actually completing his plan as a way of showing us that what counts is what's in your heart to do and not the actual accomplishing of that goal. David wanted to build it though. Not only did he come up with the idea but he wanted to do it.
Not everything that comes from your heart is a good thing though. I think though David was someone who had goals to do good thing he had learned to do good by having these good intentions. He was someone who was actively seeking to promote God's kingdom. By coming up with good things to do on our own we are training ourselves in doing good. I think God would rather give messages to people who have been actively thinking about doing good and coming up with good ideas for doing good. "How can you who are evil do anything good?". You have to practice doing good in order to do good. Like it's almost like meditation where you open your mind and ask yourself what's the most good thing I can do. What can I do that will have the most impact. This could be anything though. You can do good for one person but if that good deed completely turns someones life around then that's a great thing. When someone asks you for money you should still give to them what you can but even better would be to find that person worse of than even the poor person on the corner and help him out. Give to the poor and if they constantly ask then you have your own little gold mine that God can bless you from. Try to turn that persons life around. If you don't want to give to them then think of what they need so that they can get to the point where they don't need help.
Perhaps though you can come up with a way to to help thousands of people. Perhaps you can help get large numbers of people to go to Church. What's the biggest impact you can make. Open your mind and come up with ideas, refine those ideas and get some practice at planning out good don't just use the cop out of "Waiting on the Lord". You wait on the Lord when you know there is something he doesn't want you to do and you don't do it. It's not about waiting for God to give you a sign telling you to do good. Do good until God tells you to stop. Don't stop till God tells you to do good.
The Bible does tell us to wait upon the Lord though. But that's about waiting upon the Lord instead of letting fear or temptation get the best of you. It's about resisting the devil. It's hard to do that though. It doesn't apply to you waiting upon the Lord to do Good. It's waiting upon the Lord and resisting the temptation to go out and get what you want. It's about not lying on your job application. Saul was afraid so he offered a sacrifice. He got an idea but it was a bad one. There is a proverb that says don't rush. Proverbs 19:2 "Also, desire without knowledge is not good; And he who hurries with his feet sins.". Just because you come up with an idea of some good you can do that doesn't mean rush into it right away. Most people though hurry to do evil not to do good. Actually though people hurry because they put something off for a long time and then it's the last minute so they have to hurry up and get something done. So that goes along with waiting too much. Jesus said don't Worry about tomorrow. That goes along with don't save your money and don't lie on job applications.
Look at David: God didn't complain to any prophet "Oh that my people would build me a house." David came up with the idea all on his own without any prompting from God. How is it wrong to do things for God's Kingdom that he didn't lay on our heart. Now if after he was told "You your son shall build it" He continued obstinately to continue his plan he would have been doing wrong. But if the prophet had said nothing to him then would he have been wrong to build God's temple? I think not. I think he would have been blessed just as God blessed him. God blessed David for coming up with something to do for God. I think God blessed him and prevented him from actually completing his plan as a way of showing us that what counts is what's in your heart to do and not the actual accomplishing of that goal. David wanted to build it though. Not only did he come up with the idea but he wanted to do it.
Not everything that comes from your heart is a good thing though. I think though David was someone who had goals to do good thing he had learned to do good by having these good intentions. He was someone who was actively seeking to promote God's kingdom. By coming up with good things to do on our own we are training ourselves in doing good. I think God would rather give messages to people who have been actively thinking about doing good and coming up with good ideas for doing good. "How can you who are evil do anything good?". You have to practice doing good in order to do good. Like it's almost like meditation where you open your mind and ask yourself what's the most good thing I can do. What can I do that will have the most impact. This could be anything though. You can do good for one person but if that good deed completely turns someones life around then that's a great thing. When someone asks you for money you should still give to them what you can but even better would be to find that person worse of than even the poor person on the corner and help him out. Give to the poor and if they constantly ask then you have your own little gold mine that God can bless you from. Try to turn that persons life around. If you don't want to give to them then think of what they need so that they can get to the point where they don't need help.
Perhaps though you can come up with a way to to help thousands of people. Perhaps you can help get large numbers of people to go to Church. What's the biggest impact you can make. Open your mind and come up with ideas, refine those ideas and get some practice at planning out good don't just use the cop out of "Waiting on the Lord". You wait on the Lord when you know there is something he doesn't want you to do and you don't do it. It's not about waiting for God to give you a sign telling you to do good. Do good until God tells you to stop. Don't stop till God tells you to do good.
The Bible does tell us to wait upon the Lord though. But that's about waiting upon the Lord instead of letting fear or temptation get the best of you. It's about resisting the devil. It's hard to do that though. It doesn't apply to you waiting upon the Lord to do Good. It's waiting upon the Lord and resisting the temptation to go out and get what you want. It's about not lying on your job application. Saul was afraid so he offered a sacrifice. He got an idea but it was a bad one. There is a proverb that says don't rush. Proverbs 19:2 "Also, desire without knowledge is not good; And he who hurries with his feet sins.". Just because you come up with an idea of some good you can do that doesn't mean rush into it right away. Most people though hurry to do evil not to do good. Actually though people hurry because they put something off for a long time and then it's the last minute so they have to hurry up and get something done. So that goes along with waiting too much. Jesus said don't Worry about tomorrow. That goes along with don't save your money and don't lie on job applications.
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