How I Discern God's Will in My Life
I had an opportunity to share my work at University with CHRW Radio (94.9 FM), and the first part of the interview was aired last Wednesday at 11 am. The first part focuses around how I discerned my calling to ministry.
If you would like to listen to it, here's the streaming link: https://soundcloud.com/chrwradio/theology-at-western-episode-6-western-chaplain-john-park
Many of you heard a big announcement this Sunday morning: I am intending to resign from my role of Associate Minster at Oakridge Presbyterian Church likely by the end of March 2018. It still needs to be processed at Presbytery in January.
I think two biggest questions I am receiving from various people are: 1) How did you come to that decision? 2) Where are you going? I'm intending to unpack these slowly over the next few months.
I'm here to answer the first question. How did you come to that decision?
A short answer is: God told me to go and I am obeying.
How do I know if God tells me something to do? It's not really a formula, but there are principles and steps I follow in discerning God's will. Sometimes you take actions on certain things immediately when you sense God's telling you something, but in other times you really have to spend a good chunk of time in prayer and discernment because the decision you make can really alter the course of your life. For instance, you don't need to pray hard to know if you need to get up in the morning. You don't need to ask God's will if you should covet someone else's wife, because it's already crystal clear in the Bible, which is the primary source of God's will.
There are things in life, however, that you really to pray and discern hard, like marriage spouse, career choice and place to live. The Bible doesn't tell you the name of your spouse. But, it gives you some guiding principles you need to think about regarding marriage and a husband-wife relationship. Also, you need to pray and ask God's
will, because it's not about what you want, but what God wants in your life.
There are lots of important principles and many great ways to discern God's will in our lives, but I just want to share the key three things I looked for in my discernment. When you listen to the interview above, you will discover that I looked for three things when I discerned about God's call to an ordained ministry: 1) Conviction through Scripture, 2) Affirmation through others and 3) Sign. All three things came to me when I asked for them to confirm God's calling to an ordained ministry, and surely enough, God opened doors in circumstance in many miraculous ways to seek and become an ordained minister.
I began to sense God's nudge that I will need to leave OPC about a year ago. A number of people, who are praying for me and my ministry, began to receive different dreams and visions, which all point to one common theme: John will leave OPC. When one person tells me this kind of dreams/visions, you just wonder. But, when five or six people share the similar dreams and visions, you begin discerning.
So, I began discerning and asked God for these three things. They all affirmed that God wanted me to go. I can no longer ignore these, but I will have to act on it. Even in this Sunday morning, the morning I made the big announcement from the pulpit, in my dream (or not), the Spirit of God came down on me and I felt like crushed and dead, like Daniel (c.f. Daniel 10:8). Then God spoke to me, "Be strong and courageous. Have I not commanded you? I am with you."
I trust God will lead my way, just as he has always done in my life. I ask everyone to continue to pray for this journey ahead of me and my family.
In Christ,
John