Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
I see that no matter whether we are trying to avoid God or are in desperate situations, God is always there. But nothing (truly) about his control or his will.
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Yes, perhaps it was an overstretch. The question that I was trying to address was, apart from the constant mental massaging of the LC, how to comprehend God's will for us, personally? My point was that our knowledge is bounded, God's is not, at least operationally. And our comings and goings, risings and fallings, even our uncertainties and discord, all fit within his order. He may not order our failures but his order is not threatened by them.
In my case, one day I got a simple message: "serve others". That was the way home. And from that day I haven't been blindly beating the air, but have had a message and a mission. It has sustained me and conveyed me from one day to the next. And almost daily, if not daily, do I see 5 loaves feed 2,000 hungry mouths. God does it. I am dull in perception but not so dull that I can't perceive the utter improbability of it all. Yet it consistently occurs.
As a bit of an aside, I note that James doesn't call himself an apostle, but rather the introduction says, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ..." James' service to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ was to serve others. In this he fulfills the Great Commandment in its two parts, what he calls the "royal law" and "the perfect law of freedom" (1:25; 2:8; 2:12). It is just to love, and to love is to serve. When you see this, you understand, and are set free. When James speaks of 'works' this is the only particular work that is noted. To visit widows and orphans in their afflictions. Other than that, stay humble, stay on the bottom, keep your mouth from prattling on. (of course I'm guilty of failure at the last point and apologize to our tired and afflicted readers. Please forgive me, for taking so much effort to make so little sense)