Monday, June 13, 2005

Good Questions

I've only been awake for about 3 hours and yet I have been asked (or asked myself) some really good questions.

7:01am "Are you going to lie in bed all day?" (by my wife Kim who had just finished 48 loads of laundry, painting the house, curing the common cold, and praying for 84,356 people by name prior to my waking.)

7:59am "What are you doing?" (again, by my lovely wife, who was inquiring why I was sitting comatose in front of my laptop and still hadn't showered.)

8:24am "Does the car have gas in it?" (by Kim who was about to leave for a week with L'nae Jensen to take 6 Treadaway Kids (lower income kids of single parents) to a camp in Austin and somehow felt that my contribution to the cause was filling up the car.)

8:43am "Then why isn't He telling us?" (by far the best question of the day from our 8 year old, Emily. We were discussing our future ministry plans and Emily was wondering if she would get to have a certain teacher next year. Here is a portion of that conversation:

Emily: "Will I have Mrs. Francis?"

Dad: "I don't know Honey."

Emily: "That's right, we don't know where we will be next year." (kinda bummed)

Dad: "But God knows." (also kinda bummed but able to hide it better than kids)

Emily: "Then why isn't He telling us?"

Classic!

8:55am "Why are you laughing at that?" (thought to myself when I was with Kim at the church helping load up the car for the trip to camp and overheard one 4th grade girl called her 5th grade brother a 'peckerwood'.)

9:29am "Do they know what year it is?" (thought to myself after being told by the donut lady at Jack & Jill's that they don't take credit cards.)

9:45am "Why isn't the milk up here?" (thought to myself after walking through the front center isle at United that is filled with alcohol of all types on my way to the far back corner of the store to get some milk for above mentioned donuts.)

9:56am "Why didn't you just go somewhere else?" (by my daughter Laura, 15, when she found out that the donut shop was out of sprinkles.)

10:02am "Where will I be serving the Lord three months from now?" (thought to myself after I typed the above question.)

5 comments:

judy thomas said...

Joel, Brandon Scott and I were saying last night that we hope God brings you to Nashville. Any possibilities? Judy Thomas

Joel said...

I don't know Judy, that depends. Any openings for ministry positions? Right now we are trying to allow the Spirit to direct but that is difficult because the Spirit is not always discernable by "gut feeling" and is always mysterious. The most difficult part of allowing the Spirit to direct is obtaining an answer from the Spirit and discerning it amongst other factors competing for attention. Things that deafen us to the voice of God are our own logic, our desires, our fears, what things appear to be, our own visions, etc. Until we can put all of these in submission to God and proclaim to him that we will obey his command, whatever it is, we may have trouble hearing God’s voice on a particular matter.

The majority of our effort are directed at discerning God's will, and we are enlisting the prayers of many people. We are trying to focus on unconditional obedience and submission to God prior to the announcement of his decision. We gather pertinent information, but then put it at God’s feet and realize that only he can interpret the information. Left to his own devices, man will judge everything through the filter of his own bias.

Was that a yes or a no?

Steve said...

Are the north Austin church planting plans out the door at this point?

Deana Nall said...

That's funny. Back in my day, the United by ACU didn't even sell alcohol. I guess they knew ACU kids weren't dumb enough to buy it where all the faculty members shop. We... I mean THEY... knew to get it across town.

Jennifer said...

I totally relate to you on the donuts and alcohol. I went to get donuts for my Kadesh group last week at AM Donuts, and they also didn't take cards, so I had to go get cash. THEN, I went to United to get milk and OJ and was sorely disappointed to see the front center aisle full of alcohol. I asked the lady that checked me out about it, and she said they'd been carrying it for a couple months because they had to keep up with the new Wal-Mart. Too bad.