The Marines? The Ministry? God's Will?

THE MARINES? THE MINISTRY? GOD'S WILL? (A LEGACY LETTER)

Dearest Steven,

I am thrilled that God's healing to your body is so complete and substantial as to allow you to play football. It was just two months ago that your episode of CFS (cranial fluid leak) led neuro surgeons to put you flat of your back and give a grim prognosis for ever playing football or entering the Military. You were right when you said that God had touched you in an identifiable way in a youth prayer meeting and healed you. The anticipated invasive brain procedures never had to be done. Your record thus far in the football season shows "you're back".

So now it has come to this. It is a hard place for a grandmother to be. Faced with yet another grandson who no longer has pudgy legs jammed into diapers and who no longer lifts his hands up to be held and hugged. So tall he looks down on her graying hair and so strong he could lift her at will.

I move with a body that lumbers along at a speed of little better than turtles, seeking to catch just one more glimpse of this young man who has grown up and now seeks his destiny and God's will for his life.I hurry lest I miss the opportunity to tell him one more time what Grandma Lady thinks and that she loves him.

Could he have chosen two things more in contrast to struggle with? The Marines at a time when our nation is at war, and Ministry to Youth which offers a world of struggle and sacrifice to serve as well? And how did he get to this point anyway?

Isn't this the young man with the incredible blue eyes which stopped people in their tracks and brought total strangers to comment on their beauty? The same young man who hated having people comment on his eyes because they made him feel different?

I know this is the young man who struggled to find a way to normalize his life when he was challenged to find a method of learning that would clarify the mysteries of reading for him. The same one who sacrificed his security of home to be tutored elsewhere so he could take control of his life through reading and education. The one who had once cried saying he hated the special teacher aide's help because the teacher would give him the answers and with tears he explained "I don't want them to tell me the answers, I want to know how they got them for myself . I just gotta get smart".

Some saw a boy with racing thoughts and too busy with too many projects. He helped them see a boy with a need to live life in fast forward as he had goals to achieve and things to fix and create. Where they saw chaos he saw himself surrounded by opportunities to bring order in new and different ways. When others heard him making rhythmic noise, he heard singing and music for his Lord. When he didn't understand rejections and those who rejected him, he developed tolerance, compassion and open mindedness concerning the short comings of others. When we saw the challenges he had before him,instead he saw life ahead of him as though he was wearing blinders. He will succeed, with God's help.

So, I repeat, now it's come to this. Choices that will have to be made to move forward and find God's perfect will for his life. Not an easy task but enviable.

Possibly there is no honest or realistic person in the immediate family that can advise him if we measure our ability to give advice by the measure of our own personal success. It is a take off on "Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone" so everyone walks away. In this case it's "Let everyone who has not made a mess in their life or screwed up, try to give him guidance".

Part of the beauty of old age is you forget alot of things and you have developed a lot of "umbrage" so you think you have earned the right to give advice anyway. I am not so far gone that I agree with this, but let me share a couple of things that got me out of hot water a few times and put my feet on the right path more than once.

I have always called it "Prayer Life for Chicken's" or "Praying for the real deal when it's a sure thing". It was something I learned in my foray through the Old Testament (and so help me if you're one of those people who just said "doesn't she know that we're New Testament Christians living under Grace not Law", just quit reading right now as you are not going to like my advice to my Grandson.)

In the Book of Judges, the sixth chapter, verses 36 thru 40 there is the story of Gideon's struggle to believe God would use him to carry out God's will. It wasn't that Gideon didn't want to serve, he just couldn't believe that God didn't have better qualified, better educated, better trained, better behaved servants to call on to do His bidding. Gideon obviously didn't know the story of God using an Ass when he needed something done and it worked out really well.

Gideon prayed and like so many of us told God he just wanted to be so sure it's God's will that he would be the delivery boy, that he wanted to make a deal with God. He would go to bed after placing a wool fleece outside his tent that night and if God really was telling him to be the one to lead in this effort that God should let only the fleece get wet from the dew but not the ground around it.

Have you ever bargained with God and had to have a "blessed assurance" of His will before you'd do it? Gideon would probably have justified it by saying he just wanted God to be happy and he (Gideon) could be a little dense so he wanted God to spell it out for him so he didn't blow it. Okay, so let's give him and "e" for effort.

The next morning Gideon got up and went out and picked up the fleece and wrung out the dew into a bowl since there was so much on it. But all of the ground as far out as he could see was absolutely dry. Was Gideon ready to make that commitment and go forth for God? Oh no, he had one more bargain to make with God. He bargained that tonight he would put out the dry fleece once more only this time when he got up in the morning the fleece would be dry and the ground would be wet.

And so it was that God tolerated Gideon's lack of "stepping out in faith" and once again answered Gideon by making the fleece dry and the ground wet. Finally, Gideon was ready to do God's will feeling secure that he had figured out what God's will was for his life.

Now I am not saying that every time you have a question you want to play parlor games with God, but what I am saying is God is faithful to answer when something is His will. He also gives us guidelines in the New Testament where He says that "when things are of God, they happen in decency and in order". So if you're manipulating things, or having to "fudge" or cheat a little to make things happen, then it's not going to be God's will.

One of the absolute first times I used prayer by fleece was when we were living in Kansas. I knew things were in turmoil and I felt there was no way out of the situation. My baby was dealing with a catastrophic illness, we were in debt for medical expenses to the point of impending bankruptcy if something big didn't happen. It was taking a terrible toll on our marital relationship.

In desperation I challenged God to re enter my life in a more powerful way and prove Himself to me in a way that I would know it was definitely and only Him. If He solved things in a short period of time not working it out over a year or two I would know it was of Him. And,it would have to be a dramatic healing of my daughter and move us out of this area to where she could be helped with her seizures successfully. Since my husband was under a year's teaching contract and the school year had just started so it was unlikely they'd be able to recruit anyone new that year. Ours was an isolated community with little appeal unless you knew the community. There was also the obstacle of having no money to move.

In one month's time God gave the answer to the babies health condition. It would require a complete and total surrender of what we had and wanted in our lives and would take us on a move several states away. Thirty days from the day I prayed that "fleece" prayer, the baby was better and soon "healed" completely. We were given the opportunity to pay off our debt with the retirement funds when we moved from the school district. We moved where my husband got a higher paying teaching job. A bonus was that I was able to go back to school and become a nurse. None of this would have been even remotely possible or seemed available when I first prayed that prayer. But God has no limits.

I asked myself for years why God even bothered to prove Himself to such a selfish and faithless person but I can only tell you, He did.

So as you prepare to decide, Marines, Ministry or Whatever, grandson, do so with the knowledge that if it's meant to be, you won't have to manipulate it. God will put up roadblocks to block the wrong fork in the road. Don't drive around them and manipulate it thinking you know what's best and can make it happen. You will cause yourself to miss the greatest blessing. You will miss Plan A for your life and have to settle for Plan B or C because you "made it happen". Trust in the Lord and let Him lead you, don't try to lead Him. He already knows how the story ends.

A verse in the Bible reminds us; "His will can never lead you where His Grace will not keep you" so go with God, dearest Steven.

And God already knows the Legacy you are to leave so get ready for the ride of your Life.