1 Samuel 6:9 (NKJV)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnd watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth Shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us\u2014it happened to us by chance.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are times when we will be unsure about what the will of God is. There are times when the will of God will be extremely confusing. There are times when we will wonder whether what we are going through is God\u2019s will, Satan\u2019s antics, or just pure chance. [Of course, it\u2019s important to say at this point that for us pilgrims, nothing actually happens by chance.] All things are under God\u2019s express direction and guidance, but still, there will be times when we won\u2019t know why things happen the way they do, or what lessons we are supposed to learn from a set of events. Life can become bleak and sorrowful when we go through experiences that we cannot decipher or make meaning out of them. These are the realities of life\u2019s uncertainties, and while we know God\u2019s Spirit lives in us and walks with us, and is ordering all things according to the Father\u2019s will, we must be honest to confess that there are many uncertainties with life. There will be situations in which we will always find it hard to clearly understand God\u2019s will. For example, if you pray for something really important to you and you feel God assuring you of a positive answer, and yet the opposite happens, this can be very traumatic. So, what do we do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we experience these struggles, imagine what the world is facing!! The Philistines, who obviously did not have God\u2019s Spirit, were in such a fix. So, they devised a simple strategy to try to decode what was going on. They wanted to know if all that happened to them \u2013 the plagues of tumors and rats \u2013 were a thing of chance or if the God of Israel was the One really behind it. They took two milk cows, and a new cart, put the Ark of the Lord and their trespass offerings in them, and let the cows go off on their own. Their simple test was that if the cows headed towards Beth Shemesh in Israel, then the Ark was guiding the cows back home, and the plagues were from God. This was like a fleece, a test of sorts, a way of seeking to know God\u2019s mind. Does God want us to walk with Him like this on a daily basis? No, certainly not. We have a more accurate way of guidance. God\u2019s Spirit speaks to us in ways that are more accurate and more definite. We all know that. However, there will be times when we may need to use a fleece for some kind of clarity. We are not expected to do this as a default way of sensing God\u2019s will, but there will be times when it may be required. Gideon did it. The early Apostles did it. But it must be done with rarity and with some kind of conviction from the Lord. Are we teaching you to depart from the Holy Spirit\u2019s guidance? Certainly not. We, however, confess that now and again; God, in His mercy, sees when we are stuck and comes in to help us by giving us some practical signs. When you feel confused and discouraged about God\u2019s will in a situation, don\u2019t be afraid to ask for a sign. You may not need to specify what the sign should look like, but as you walk with the Lord, and as you trust Him to speak to you, He will give you a sign in your time of need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 1 Samuel 6:9 (NKJV) \u201cAnd watch: if it goes up the road to its own territory, to Beth Shemesh, then He has done us this great evil. But if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that struck us\u2014it happened to us by chance.\u201d There are times when we will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-1st-samuel"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/1-Samuel-Cover.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6493,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6491\/revisions\/6493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}