Pastors Mark Driscoll and James MacDonald recently visited Haiti to encourage and support the Church there. I would encourage you to watch this and see what is happening there and to encourage people to generously give to support the work of God in Haiti.

In today’s churches, where there is a surge in the calls for music ministers and worship leaders and a number of pastors and churches dealing with questions of what worship is and what it should look like, Dr. Vernon Whaley’s Called to Worship: The Biblical Foundations of Our Response to God’s Call may come as an answer to prayer for some. Literally deriving principles for worship from the books of Scripture, Whaley attempts to provide a “full-Scripture” framework for understanding worship. Does he succeed?

Dr. Whaley’s desire is commendable. His concept of how it should be done is also good. My sense, is, however, that this book is more influenced by his Baptist roots than an informed exegesis and understanding of Hebrew or Greek (there are a number of “errors” in the language references). This is not to say that his principles for worship are wrong, but they are wrongly derived. It would be my hope that some would benefit from this book and others, seeing its weaknesses, would write a more sound, exegetically-responsible biblical theology of worship. If you’re looking for valuable reading on worship, Worship Matters by Bob Kauflin would be my recommendation.

“Where you at school?”

“Geneva College.”

“What’re you studying?”

“Christian Ministries”

“That’s wonderful. What year are you?”

“I’m in my senior year.”

“Oh, that’s great. What’s next?”

“We’re…uh….working on that.”

What you read above has become a familiar conversation in the last several months. If you’re like most other college students out there, you’ll face this question sometime in your life – whether it’s graduating high school, trying to get your kids to graduate high school, or some other so-called “stage” in life. It’s such a great question to ask, but a terrifying one to find yourself in a position of answering. I don’t know why we think it’s different for everyone else when we ask it, but we do and many of us, though we may state with confidence what we are pursuing can rarely, when the day draws near, state the “next step” with the kind of certainty we’d like.

And I know a lot of Christians, myself included, who don’t like that. The weakness in me wants to call out “Unfair!” The childishness in me insists on seeing what is above me, beyond me, and too much for me to handle. Oh sure, we come up with a lot of “helps” to deal with that problem, too: tests that will pinpoint our star career field or who we’re most compatible with, desperate pursuit of supernaturally-given knowledge and direction, the counsel of every pastor and wise(r) person we can find. We spend so much time trying to figure out the future – even the immediate future, that it’s almost become a characteristic of young evangelicals.

I’m not here to say we need to pay more attention to the present. That’s both another issue in and of itself, as well as yet another weak attempt to clear the mist. The fact is, looking at your feet when you’ve no idea where you’re going isn’t going to cut it. What I am here to say is that God has not given us 20/20 foresight, impeccable discernment or all the resources to make the best decision possible at every possible point in time. And that’s okay. It’s infuriating to our weakness, but it’s okay.

So, what to do? I’m not sure that there is a one-size-all answer to that question. But I know sitting by and waiting for all the ambiguities, shadows, mists, and distant points to clear up is not faithfulness. It’s not what God’s called us to. It’s not pressing on. In his letter to Jewish exiles, James the brother of Jesus wrote the following exhortation:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17 ESV)

Again, I have no 12-step process. I don’t think God’s given us that sort of outline. But James has given us the boundaries of faithfulness: be humble, be submissive to the Lord’s providential will, and do it. And if you don’t, you will know the guilt of your sin in failing to act on the time – this life that quickly vanishes – that God has given you to glorify Him.

If you think that this puts all the burden on you, we have something more for us: the promise that God has guaranteed His glory, guaranteed the harvest, and guaranteed the redemption of all that He bought with His blood:

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:26-32)