God’s “Push-Pull” Guidance
In my experience, when it comes time for a major life’s decision—perhaps a career change, geographic relocation, strategic alliance, etc.—I have found that God often operates by what Robin and I like to call a “push-pull” method of guidance. First, He pulls us toward the decision by creating what feels like a vacuum of some sort in our lives. . . Sorta like when God told Abraham to go to a land he knew nothing about (Genesis 12). Then, it would seem he complements that “pull” with a “push” in our life’s circumstances—often feeling like ye olde’ kick in de pants! I would suppose that the children of Israel felt this kind of “push” when they were being chased to the edge of the Red Sea by the Egyptian Pharaoh and his army (Exodus 14).
A quick case in point: living in Port Angeles, Washington, while our son, Sterling, was taking a year off of high school to get his Microsoft Certified Systems Engineering training at Peninsula College, right around the year 2000 unexpectedly a vacuum started building that drew Robin and me to consider moving back to the Seattle area. The pull was in our spirits. Somehow we sensed our time was up in P. A. and that it was time to move East once again. The push came when someone in our household needed major surgery in a Seattle hospital, and the lease ran out on our house and the landlord decided to sell the house, refusing to renew it again as he had twice before. Yet, in our spirits the final kick in the pants came when our kids blew off some fireworks on July 4th, causing the family dog to take off in terror and run the three blocks to the major highway, where Bubba met with is final destiny: a Mack Truck! The strange part of that finale was that Robin and I heard separately about the dog’s demise, but the first thought that came to mind for each of us was identical: “It’s time to move now!”
Passing through the Weakness Threshold
Once the guidance is confirmed via a Spirit-directed push-pull process, then often comes a test. In the example above, the test came when I discovered that literally everyone in our six-person household had their own ideas of where we should move to in the greater Seattle area. The suggestions came flooding in to me—each with a salesperson’s push behind them: “Dad, you’ve just GOT to get this house (even if it’s over your budget)!”. . . “Dad, why not get this place (even if it’s not close to your business hub)!” etc. Finally, at the point of total exasperation, I gave up! Sitting at my home-office desk I passed through what I have come to term, “the weakness threshold.” I ceased striving and came to the place of quiet before the Lord, resigned to His will even before I received it fully. In the stillness, after awhile I heard this word: “The answer will come through Crystal.”
Now, Crystal is the most vociferous of our five children. We alternately call her “Spark Plug,” “Dynamite,” and “The Politicker!” She had already presented to me a half-dozen outrageous ideas of housing for us in the greater Seattle area. I did not wish to hear one more thing from her! In fact, it was because of her that I had closed my office door! But, after I had sat there for a few minutes in the silence pondering this incongruous “guidance,” Crystal quietly tapped on the door, walked in, and with an uncharacteristically soft voice, simply said, “Dad, here’s our new house.” Laying down a newspaper ad on my desk in front of me, she quietly left the room.
Crystal had found the perfect house for us. It fit us in every way—including ways we were not fully to discover until we actually lived in it for the year and a half while we located our future home in Auburn. Why, the place wasn’t even set up for a dog!
Once again, we had discovered God’s push-pull method of guidance, passing through the weakness threshold into God’s perfect provision for our lives:
“The question is not therefore, ‘Are our needs small or great?’
or, ‘Are they known or unknown?’
but simply this, ‘Are we in the will of God?’
Our faith may be tested, and our patience, too,
but if we are willing to leave things in God’s hands and quietly wait for Him,
then we shall not fail to see a careful timing of events
and an exquisite dove tailing of circumstances,
and emerging from a meaningless maze,
we shall behold a perfect correspondence between our need and the supply.”
– Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Church Life
International Students Press, 1962, page 110
Pullin’ (and sometimes pushin’) for you,
Ken
