Figuring out God's will has always been a major concern for humanity. Did God want the Gentiles to become Jews first (keep the OT law) or could they skip Judaism to become followers of Jesus? Great question. I was a tough enough question that it required special attention.
What I see in this chapter is that interpreting what God's will is for my life is not always easy. It is not as simple as a leading in my heart or what I think is a sign. When the people that walked with Jesus tried to discern God's will they included community, referred to scripture and listened to the Spirit. It is easy to think that Peter and Paul did not need all that and that they simply moved forward all of their lives via the guiding of the Spirit. Yet, here they sit in a large council trying to discern the will of God.
So why should I expect less? Why should I think that a commitment to Christ means that deciding the next step will be easy? Somehow we think that; we expect that. In our heads we believe that we have made the tough choice and now God is supposed to make the rest be a matter of "follow the leader." Yet, he did not set up life that way. Figuring out the next step was never easy, not even for the apostles at times.
Referring to scripture and listening to the Spirit are not that tough a challenge for me. Letting others in on the process and risking outcomes by including the opinions of others, that is hard. Probably each person rates those components differently in regards to difficulty. Yet each of us will agree that difficulty is involved.
In a way, I'm really grateful that this chapter was written. I would hate to think that it used to be easy but now its not. Its nice to know that discernment has never been easy.
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