The Lord has helped me not to want anyone to agree with me. As Paul says “Who is Paul?who is Appollos? For that matter who is Verle? It is the Lord that counts, I hope that they discern God’s thought and AGREE WITH HIM.

I have had the interesting experience of debating with someone and apparently “winning” the debate. Still I don’t want to win, I want to get closer to the truth. So I kept pondering the issue and a week later went to the other person. I explained to them why they were right and I was wrong and how to stand their ground and apply the truth more effectively.

I always start with agreeing with God even before I know exactly what he is saying. Sometimes I hear a good friend talking with someone else. They stop and look at me and say, “don’t you agree?” Truth is I have no idea what they have been talking about but I say, “Yea, of course I agree, because they are my friend and I consider them to be wise. So I go to the Word, not to find out if I can agree but to find out what I already agree with and don’t know that yet! In fact, I always get excited when something does not make easy sense to me but seems to be where God is coming from, because as I struggle to see why he is right and I am wrong, I am blessed with a larger understanding of his wisdom.

I used to attend a Bible study with a group of Univ of Mich students. It struck me that they were trying to see if they agreed with God’s Word or not. What? It is not our job to agree or disagree but to try to let the Holy Spirit stretch our understanding to comprehend his ways.

The Lord allowed Lois and me to start a community teaching and mutual support program in Wheaton Illinois. I was so excited with what the Lord showed us and how he was blessing that I invited a Christian psychiatrist to come and see and consider doing something similar herself. However she was not seeking to find out  the God-thoughts that she agreed with, but to see if Gods thought agreed with her. They did not. She was so bothered by the Lord’s creativity and by being confronted that she had developed no ability to use the scriptures in a practical way, that she went to the administration of our clinic and badmouthed the whole program and eventually had it shut down.

Beloved, always remember that your thinking is full of firmly believed delusions that get in the way of God expressing his creativity. His ways are not my ways his thoughts not my thoughts. The task of Bible study or prayer or listening to sermons is to purge my thinking.