IWU Thoughts 2, a Response From Myself to Myself

I wanted to point out a few things about my last blog that I may have failed to mention.  First of all, I want everyone to know there is nothing wrong with asking people about their walk with God.  For me to say this would be blaspheme and not my purpose.  I am more worried about people asking about it so publicly or something.  Facebook is incredibly public and no one wants to look like they are doing something wrong by not hearing and learning from God.  I recently learned a bit about God putting people into a "wilderness" where he will remain silent for a long time.  God sometimes remains silent in our lives so that we can learn, grow, become prepared, and even sometimes to break us from habits or our comfort zone.  We don't know this all the time and many times this may seem like we are not growing or getting anything from God.  Honestly, how would you immediately feel if someone told you that they weren't hearing, feeling, or learning anything from God?  You might be quick to judge and even condemn.  My other main point was why the summer?  Why don't we expect God to teach us and grow us all year?  Is there something special about summer?  Maybe, but there doesn't have to be.  Many of us may actually be more busy now that its summer and will hear God even less.  I wanted to get people thinking.  I think maybe questions regarding a persons spiritual walk would be better placed in a facebook message than a wall post.  Isn't this something a bit more intimate?  This would also avoid the idea that you are just using small talk.  I think I'll talk a little more about the wilderness experience from God a little bit later.  I want to apologize if it seemed like I was saying that asking about what God's doing is wrong.  I wanted to make sure people were checking themselves and that they weren't just copying someone else.  That our hearts are in the right place when we are asking questions that could be deep and personal.  I just felt like some people were asking just to ask.  I don't know their reasons but I wonder if even they knew their reasons.

My goal in this blog is not to be sarcastic or critical.  I want to be genuine.  I want to offer my thoughts as a way to cause you to think, pray, and grow.  I don not want to cause you unhealthy guilt.  There is a fine line between helpful guilt and harmful guilt.  My goal is certainly not to cause any of you to guilt into dishonesty as this is exactly what I am trying to avoid.

In the end I wanted to let people know that some people may not have a answer or a good answer to the What is God doing questions.  Are you ready to accept that God is doing "nothing"?  Are you ready to accept that they may not have an answer at all?  I want to believe that we all are.  But I don't want us to feel pressured into making something up.  Overspiritualizing things and making things up is not good and only leads to hurt.  We already get guilted and pressured into enough things.  All I ask is that we be careful and listen to God.  Also, be careful what we ask.

Thanks for reading, sorry if I missed some details, feel free to ask me to explain something further.

Your friend, brother, and companion in Christ.
-Zachary Haas

P.S.  Feel free to ask me about God and what hes doing.  I just spent tonight writing this and talking to two people about spiritual things and I am feeling more uplifted than I have in a long time.  And my family is a wreck right now.  Praise the Lord for my joy and uplifting in this storm!

P.S.S.  The coolest thing happened last night after I posted that blog.  I was reading my book for small group and there was a line that talked about being companions with God or Jesus or something like that.  I'm sure you noticed that I sign each post with "companion in Christ."  When I read this it was a rather large encouragement and I thought it was cool :)