Burst Into Flames: A Parable

by Richard McInteer

Blake remembered very little about the rest of the morning sessions. His mind was not on the retreat activities, he was dazzled by the possibilities and impossibilities of a sudden career change. He was both terrified and excited by the whole concept, but he was also very concerned that he had put 2 + 2 together to equal 5. Was God really speaking this to him?

  Finally the lunch break came around. Mark came over to him and asked, “Blake, are you alright? You don’t seem to be with the program.”

  Blake looked hopefully at Mark, “Maybe you can help. While we were having the individual quiet prayer time this morning, I think God might have given me a major life direction, but I'm not sure. Maybe I just jumped to conclusions about what it was all about. Perhaps I'm just putting words into God's mouth.”

  “OK, let's sit down here.” Mark gestured to a couple of chairs nearby, “First, you need to ask yourself whether this 'command from God' sounds like a great idea.”

  Blake thought, “Well it might be something that would be OK, but it is scary as anything.”

  “That is a good sign,” said Mark, “generally if it sounds like a really great idea, it may not have come from God. It is usually a good evaluation to see if the 'command' will benefit you in any way. That benefit may be in the form of money, prestige, status, power or even in relationships. Any time the 'command' generates benefits for the individual, then they need to be extra, extra cautious with it. In your specific situation, I would guess that this instruction which might be from God involves leaving your unhappy work situation?”

  Blake replied sadly, “Yeah. So I guess that means it wasn't from God, huh?”

  “I can't really say.” said Mark, “What it does mean is that you just have to be extra careful. The devil loves to impersonate God, by injecting some appealing idea and letting people believe it was God that sent it. So you need to be careful with the idea. The next thing you need to do is to carefully consider whether the idea is consistent with God's word and character. God is never going to tell you to do something that is wrong. For example, He won't tell you to how to take revenge on somebody or to leave your wife for another woman or anything like that.”

  “I can't really see this idea as being contrary to God or the Bible,” said Blake, “but even so, I'm not sure whether it came from God or not.”

  Mark responded, “That's not so uncommon. Unless it is something that you have act on immediately, just keep praying about it. If it is not from God, it will lose its luster when you keep praying about it. If it is from God, it will begin to get even bigger in your mind.”

  “I don't guess it is anything that I need to act on immediately, so I suppose I can do that.”

  Mark said, “My personal suggestion would be to do your best to not think too much about it and try not to work out details. I remember once I had this maybe-from-God idea come into my mind and while I was waiting for it to be more obvious whether it was from God, I worked and worked on it. I reached a point that I knew it wasn't from God, but I had already grown attached to it. Giving it up wasn't very pretty.”

  Blake frowned, “Not having to run with this is a relief, but I have to admit, I am a bit disappointed. On the one hand, it would have been exciting to start doing God's work. Then, too, I feel a little...well...inadequate, that I don't know whether that was God speaking or not.”

  “Well, don't.” said Mark, “If you remember Gideon51 from the Bible, he wasn't sure if he had heard from God or not. He went to some pretty crazy lengths to make sure it was God who had called him. I'm not sure he makes a very good model of how to deal with God's communications, but he does make it clear that sometimes even the heroes aren't positive if a word came from God or someplace else.”

  Blake asked, “Was Gideon the guy with the fleece and the dew and all?”

  “That's the guy.”

  About that time one of the retreat coordinators asked them, “Are you gentlemen going to have some lunch?”

  Blake and Mark got up saying, “Yes. I guess we should.”