{"id":357,"date":"2017-12-12T07:55:31","date_gmt":"2017-12-12T07:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=357"},"modified":"2017-12-12T07:55:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-12T07:55:32","slug":"beyond-waiting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Waiting\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It is the season of Advent in the Christian calendar!\u00a0 You probably know this! You probably also know also that we are in a season of waiting. Sometimes I think we like waiting because it means we do nothing. Francis Chan in his book \u2018Crazy Love\u2019 says &#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; color: #808080;\">\u201cMost of us use \u2018I\u2019m waiting for God to reveal His calling on my life\u2019\u00a0as a means of avoiding action.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Francis Chan goes on is his book to throw out a challenge to us in this season of waiting \u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201cDid you hear God calling you to sit in front of the television yesterday? Or to go on your last vacation? Or exercise this morning? Probably not, but you still did it. The point isn\u2019t that vacations or exercise are wrong, but that we are quick to rationalize our entertainment and priorities\u00a0yet are slow to commit to serving God.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Maybe this rings true for you?\u00a0Francis Chan goes on to recount a story \u2026<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">\u201dA friend of mine was speaking recently. Afterward a guy came up and told him, \u2018I would go serve God as a missionary overseas, but, honestly, if I went right now it would only be out of obedience\u2019. \u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>I guess the question would be ..\u00a0\u201dSo whats wrong with acting out of obedience?\u201d<br \/>\nJesus said, \u201cIf you love me, you will obey what I command\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bibleserver.com\/text\/ESV\/John14%3A15\" class=\"bibleserver extern\" target=\"_blank\">John 14:15<\/a>).<br \/>\nJesus did not say, \u201cIf you love me you will obey me when you feel called or good about doing so\u2026.\u201d If we love, then we obey. \u00a0Period.<\/p>\n<p>This sort of matter-of-fact obedience is part of what it means to live a life of faith even in this season of waiting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It is the season of Advent in the Christian calendar!\u00a0 You probably know this! You probably also know also that we are in a season of waiting. Sometimes I think [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-obedience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":358,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cassowary.unitingchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}