Blogging the Festival - Craig Barnes and God's Will

"Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out." -11th step

I first heard Craig Barnes speak at the Festival of Homiletics in 2009 and immediately went to the Festival book store and bought, The Pastor as Minor Poet, his book that I enjoyed and recommended to clergy friends.  So I was delighted to get to hear him speak again this year.  He preached at one of the morning services and then gave a lecture.  His sermon was based on the beginning of Genesis, that tree in the garden, that hole inside of us - the one thing that we cannot have and that we so desperately want.  Barnes suggested that maybe God didn't want us not to have holes, that the first two pages of Genesis are all about God's plan and what God wants for us.  "The rest of the book is the recovery plan."  Ha!  It was an addiction and recovery sermon in my mind, and it spoke to me.  The idea that was new for me is that God's idea of Paradise includes a tree we may not have - a hole, as it were.  One that we're not supposed to plug up, one that's right in the center of our lives.  Rather than trying to fill the hole, Barnes recommended we set up an altar next to it.  Hmmm...  I continue to ponder what that might look like. 

The phrase that stood out the most for me though, was in his lecture when he listed things that are toxic to preachers, and he said, "Don't worry more about God's will than God does."  I had to think about that for a minute.  In the 11th step we are taught to pray only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out.  Did Barnes say we're not supposed to be thinking about, praying about, and listening for God's will for us?  I don't think so.  What he said was that God leaves forks in the road for us and honors our freedom to choose.  If we're choosing between, say, taking a job in Florida or taking one in Kentucky, it's not like God is going to say, "Oops!  You picked the one in Florida.  Can't help you there.  You're on your own now.  Good luck!"  Barnes suggested that our worry about God's will is really about seeking certainty and not making mistakes.  Ah, yes.  Guilty as charged.  Seeking certainty so that I won't make mistakes.  I'm sure there is a part of me that truly wants to do God's will and listens and prays and tries to understand what that might be.  Mostly, though, if I'm honest, I just want to know what the right answer is so that I can avoid conflict, make everyone happy, (preferably including me and God,) and be successful in whatever I'm doing.  I so desperately want to be certain that I am GETTING IT RIGHT.  And the need to get it right is toxic to my soul, just as Barnes said that it is.  

A little more mystery.  A little less certainty.  "The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine."  Thank you, Indigo Girls.  Thank you, Craig Barnes.  Thanks, God. 

(For those who have read this far and are wondering what the elk pictures have to do with this blog post, the answer is that it's a mystery.  Isn't it cool that we were able to get THAT CLOSE to them, though?)