Decisions: Signs Along the Way

A message from the Book of Judges 6:33-40 by Don Heatley from Vision Community Church 2/8/09

The first time I read the story of Gideon’s fleece, I was so excited.  It was a beautiful Spring evening when I was about twelve years old.  Months earlier, I had gone forward at an altar call and decided, with little understanding of what I was getting myself into, to become a follower of Jesus.   Afterwards, I learned that one thing that Jesus people were supposed to do was read their Bible everyday.  So I went into a Bible bookstore and bought a copy of “The Way,” a very seventies-ish modern paraphrase of the Bible.  In its opening pages was a chart designed to help you read through the whole Bible in a year, which is exactly what I set out to do.  This explains why I was reading the Book of Judges and the story of Gideon.

I read that story about Gideon putting out a fleece to determine whether or not God would give him victory in an upcoming battle.  First he put it out and said, “Hey God if when I wake up tomorrow, the fleece is wet and the ground around it I dry, I’ll know you’re with me.”  Sure enough, he wakes up the next morning and that is the case.  Still, it is not good enough for Gideon.  He wants to make sure.  So next he asks for the reverse, that the fleece will be dry and the ground around it be wet.  Once again, God passes his test.  So that emboldens Gideon to go out into battle.  God had given him a direct sign that God was with him, that Gideon’s actions and decisions were the right ones.

Wow!  When I read that I thought, “why didn’t anybody tell me this?  God does that?  God does miraculous supernatural signs to tell you what to do?  I’ve gotta’ test this out.”  So I went outside at dusk and I brought my dog Brandy with me.  (Yes she was named after the song by Looking Glass.) I really wanted to hear from God.  Being twelve, I wasn’t really facing any big decisions at that pint in my life.  So I needed to find something that God could give a sign about.  So I decided to stick with something basic.  I wanted God to show me that there really was a God.  I wanted God to show me that God existed.

So Brandy and I sat outside for a while.  I had to think, hmmm, what could God do to give me a sign about this?  There were not many sheep in suburban New Jersey so I did not have a fleece handy.  Aha!  I know.  I’ll draw a cross on the ground.  That seemed good.  So I went to a part of our backyard near the garden, found a stick and carved a cross into the dirt. 

Now… what did I want God to do with the cross?  Had to think again.  I sat there for a long time.  I looked at the sunset.  I looked at Brandy.  She was tired and lying down.  What sign did I want God to give me?

Suddenly, Brandy got up.  She walked straight over to the dirt-carved cross.  “This is it”! I thought.  This was Gods sign to me.  Hey, I was willing to take anything.  So Brandy, walked over to the cross, and sniffed around. 

Then she peed on it.  Apparently, she was a forerunner of Robert Mapplethorpe.

Not exactly the sign I was looking for but it would have to do.   Somehow, I think I may have misinterpreted Gideon’s story.  Gideon’s story is set in the time after the children of Israel have been liberated from slavery in Egypt, through Moses, and returned to conquer the Promised Land under the leadership of Joshua.   By the time we are introduced Gideon, the story of Israel has taken a bad turn.  The people disobey God’s commands.  They begin worshipping other gods and build altars to them.  They set up sacred poles to the Canaanite fertility god Asherah.  To make matters worse, they now face a new enemy, the Midianites. 

At this point, an angel appears to Gideon to tell him the Lord is with him and that he will be a great warrior.  Gideon stops and thinks, “Wait a minute. If God is with our people, why is all this bad stuff happening to us?  How come the Midianites are kicking our butts?  All the old people around here tell stories about this great stuff God did in their generation.  What happened?  Has God forgotten about us?” 

In response God tells Gideon, “Go and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian; I hereby commission you.”

I don’t know about you, but for me that would be good enough, or so I tell myself.  An angel and God telling I have been commissioned, surely that would be enough of a sign I was on the right track.  Yet Gideon needed a sign, a sign that this really was God with whom he was speaking.  The story next describes an incident where Gideon brings a gift to an altar he builds for God.  In response, the gift is consumed by a miraculous fire.  This gives Gideon the assurance he was looking for, so he goes out in the town and tears down the altars and sacred poles built to worship other gods.  Now Gideon is confident, or so it appears.  Next he prepares to battle the Midianites, but once again he needs a sign.  That’s where the fleece comes in.  It serves as a one more assurance that he is headed in the direction to which called God him.

When I consider Gideon’s story I am a bit envious, and I would bet you are too.  After all, wouldn’t it be great to get direct messages and signs from God like Gideon did?  Wouldn’t it be great to be commissioned by God for a specific purpose, to set out in that mission and then have the repeated assurances from God that we are on the right track? 

The good news we have all those things.  “How can that be?” you ask, “I never see magical displays of fire or discover mysteriously moist sheep parts on my floor in the morning.”  No, chances are you don’t.  However, limiting God’s signs to magic show religion is making the same mistake I did with that ill-conceived cross test when I was twelve.  We need to look beyond the more spectacular details of Gideon’s story to the truth at which it points us.  If we are willing to do that, we will discover our experiences of God are very much like his.  We do receive signs.

As we have seen over the past few weeks, making God-based decisions is like taking a journey.  We must first seek that those decisions be rooted in God’s will and purposes in the world.  We must start at the sources of wisdom God has given us, the Scriptures, the wisdom of God’s people who preceded us, and our own gifts of Reason and experiences.  Also we must be seeking a God-based outcome, one that creates more love and more of God’s Kingdom in the world.

When we face tough decisions, even with all of that, we still lose our confidence on the way.  We may choose a course of action, and even though we followed all these guidelines, once we are into it, we second-guess ourselves.  Did we do the right thing?  Why are things getting worse and not better?  Did I make a big mistake?  How do I know I’m heading I the right direction?

Back in the old pre-GPS days, when someone would give you directions to their house, they would say something like, “Head up Route 23, go past the third light and a while past it is Oak Road.  When you see the sign for Oak Road, make a right and we’re a mile down on the left.” 

Remember how quaint that was?  Invariably something like this would happen.  You head up Route 23, go through three lights, one, two, three, and start looking for Oak Road.  You drive … and drive …and drive…no Oak Road.  So you start wondering, “Wait a minute.  Did I pass three lights or two?  Or four?  Maybe I already passed it?  Maybe I wrote it down wrong?”

Just when it seems everything is going wrong and your day is about to be ruined, you see it.  Oak Road!  Suddenly all is right with the world again.  The universe is an orderly place.  The sign gave you the assurance that you were indeed headed in the right direction.

God does the same thing for us when make the big decisions.  When we are second-guessing our God-based choices, there are signs along the journey that assure us we are on the right path.  Notice, I specified God-based choices, choices that match the criteria we have explored these past weeks.  That is an important distinction to make because everything I am about to tell you will not work if you do not start with God’s will and wisdom and have a Spirit-centered destination in mind.  As a matter of fact, following signs without those criteria will more than likely lead you down the wrong road.  Just as you cannot make it to your friend’s house by simply wandering around aimlessly looking for Oak Road, you cannot make good decisions by just wandering around looking for signs from God.

That’s not say a decision cannot begin with a sign from God.  Sometimes our decision journey begins with an inner prompting, perhaps when we are praying, a sense of God calling us to do something, a thought that comes out of nowhere, a concern for a person comes to mind.  Such promptings are good place to start, but we cannot base our whole decision on them.  1 John 4 tells us to “test the spirits.”  In other words, examine them in the light of God’s sources of Wisdom and the Fruits of the Spirit.

George Fox, the founder of the Quaker Church once said to his people, "Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts, which are the leadings of God."  Note he specified “promptings of love and truth” and not just “Friends follow wherever your heart leads you.” For Fox, as for us, love and truth are rooted in life, teachings, death and resurrection of Jesus.  As disciples, we must always take those leadings and promptings and filter them through Christ.  That is how we know the difference between the promptings of the Spirit and our own self-interest and agendas.

So, besides inner promptings, what kinds of signs does God give us for the journey?  Some of the biggest are doors that open and doors that close.  When you are in the process of spiritual discernment, look for what opportunities become newly available to you and which ones start closing off. 

As many of you know, for years Vision has been looking for a larger more permanent home.  We have approached many places and always have been turned away.  The door has always closed.  There have been many locations that looked promising and many subsequent disappointments.  A few weeks ago, a very unlikely group approached us about using their facility.  It was one I had long assumed would have been too small for us, so I was surprised to learn it could in fact hold about 250 people.  This was not a door we banged our fists on. It was one that suddenly opened out of nowhere.  Needless to say, that got our attention and we are now on the decision-making journey, bringing all these criteria to bear on it.

That bring us to another sign God gives us is people, especially people with whom you have an apparently chance encounter.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am not suggesting that you just change your whole life because of something a waitress tells you.  However, it does benefit us to pay attention to the God-centered people (note the term God-centered) that come into your life.   The very fact that they have come into your life may be the result of God’s prompting of their hearts. 

Since I began this series, I have run into a few people with whom I had lost touch and happened to mention that I was preaching a series on making decisions.  Invariably, they have always responded with a story of a big decision they just happen to be facing right now.  Most of them have stopped by here at Vision or listened to our podcast.  Pay attention to the God-centered people that seem to randomly appear in your life.

I am not suggesting that we become superstitious like your crazy old aunt who interprets every broken dish as a portent of the impending death of a loved one.  Nor do I think we should be like some Christians who recast every random coincidence in life as a message from God.  However, I would not want us to just dismiss all of life as mere random coincidence either.  God is mystery and mystery does not lend itself well to simple formulations or methods.  As God’s people, we need to allow ourselves to be open to the possibility of that mystery.  We must have the faith, the hope and the trust to believe that in the journey of decisions, God will provide us with signs along the way.