Friday, August 14, 2009

Never Trust Your Gut...

I recently read about the value of trusting your "gut" when it comes to making decisions as a man. It's very funny and although I can see some truth to this, it simply won't work if you take that advice and apply it to living out the good news of the gospel with strangers. Here's why...

1. Your gut lies to you. Call it your "intuition" or your "sense" or your "feeling" or your "wisdom" based on the past, or whatever, Jeremiah will call it the heart and he tells us its not to be trusted as ultimate truth--especially when our pride tells us we could lose some face (Jer. 17:9). Your gut doesn't always get it right.

2. You're an idiot. Don't get angry--it's just that you don't know everything and that's okay. Only God is omniscient (all-knowing) and that means we're supposed to do what the old song says when it comes to reaching out, "trust and obey...for there's no other way..." In other words, we fool ourselves when we assess a situation based on human wisdom, and then make a decision to either act in self-effacing love or defer based on what we evaluate about the individual or situation.

Today I was at Verizon getting info from my old phone (that recently took a dive in the toilet) to my new phone. The woman that served me was very helpful and cheerful--but for whatever reason, I just didn't have a strong "sense" that much would happen one way or another if I initiated an invite to church.

I was once again *dead* wrong.

We had a great conversation. She shared about her life and was thankful for letting her know about our church. She is in a place of looking for a church in the area.

I left reminding myself I don't know anything about anybody at anytime and that's a good thing. I'm a creature dependent upon a Creator who has come to me through Christ.

Trust and obey--there's no other way to be happy in Jesus--than to trust and obey...

Put your gut to death...

5 comments:

  1. Rob, thanks for continuing to post about your encounters. They are motivating.

    I've got one question for you that I hope you can address in a future post:
    Where do you carry your tracts and church invites? Do they get wrinkled in a pocket? Do you keep them in your car? wallet? fanny pack?

    for the last few days, I've carried around some "10 Reasons Christ came to Die" Piper tracts in my back pocket. However, they get all wrinkled and I don't want to hand out shaggy looking tracts.

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  2. uhhh...i usually go fanny pack. I wasn't going to admit that but there you go...

    Actually..I put them in a NIV pocket NT. they don't bend or wrinkle. In fact I can put invites, tracts, and a memory card in the Bible and take it everywhere i go. So, you've got your keys, cell phone, and Bible, but i'm used to it by now.

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