Our 2017 preaching theme is “He restores our souls (Ps 23:4).” But how will the Lord do it? Will he send a bolt of lightning from heaven? All things are possible with God, but this isn’t probably the means that He will use to sharpen each one of us spiritually.  More likely, if there is going to be substantial spiritual growth in 2017 for any of us, it is going to occur in that mysterious place where God’s sovereignty and human responsibility meet.

Now I don’t mean to suggest that God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are two utterly separate things…they are not.  They are intimately interwoven, like the threads in a tapestry. On the one side you see the beauty of God’s overarching plan and on the other the seemingly chaotic intermingled and intertwined multicolored threads.  We human beings are normally confined to seeing that chaotic underside while only God is privy to the masterpiece on the other.

So, when I speak of the mysterious place where divine sovereignty and human responsibility meet, I am speaking of the moments in which God reveals to us what He wills (most often by His word) and in which we must correspondingly act.

One great example of this is in the book of Joshua where in several places we see God laying out the plan for Joshua, but Joshua still needing to put together the details of how his army will accomplish it (i.e. Joshua 8:1-29).

With that background in mind, I want to ask you, “What’s your plan for 2017?”  Even more specifically, “What’s your plan for spiritual refreshment in 2017?” That God desires us to each have a deep and intimate relationship with Him is undeniable.  That God is at work weaving a tapestry to accomplish this is also indisputable. But the fact remains, we each are called to pursue a plan toward this end.

I like the way that A.W. Tozer says it in the book that we will all be reading (Lord willing) this year. He says…

“What God in His sovereignty may yet do on a world scale I do not claim to know: but what He will do for the plain man or woman who seeks His face I believe I do know and can tell others. Let any man turn to God in earnest, let him begin to exercise himself unto godliness, let him seek to develop his powers of spiritual receptivity by trust and obedience and humility, and the results will exceed anything he may have hoped in his leaner and weaker days.” A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

So, “what’s your plan?” Will you read through the bible? Will you re-commit yourself to praying regularly, will you join a bible study that you’ve been neglecting, will you take that mission trip you’ve been putting off, will you seek out that person from whom you are estranged in order to confess and/or forgive, will you forfeit some time doing something you enjoy in order to create more space for spiritual reflectiveness?

There are a 1000 different ways to pursue God and we can’t do all of them.  But we can do something.

So, “what’s your plan?”