Guidance

I think this is important: "The contemporary need for a robust theology of guidance comes into focus because of two broad trends:
1. The resurgence of divinatory techniques for guidance in new spiritualities.
2. The essential 'folk religiosity' practised by many lay Christians in the absence of any articulated theology."
It's an area of practical theology that I think is neglected and yet it goes to the heart of theology because guidance relies on such issues as
-what kind of God are we relating to?
-What is God's relationship with the creation?
-How does God speak [today]?
-How is scripture to be understood?
I think it was Gregory of Nyssa who said that a theologian is one who prays, ditto seeking guidance.
For me it's no abstract issue either; what am I to make of my situation. At one level I would be content with 'waiting' if I knew for sure that was what I was supposed to do. But then a likely looking job is advertised and I can't help wondering, what if this is supposed to be something I go for? I don't even think in terms of whether it is the post I should occupy; really just whether I should actively enter the discernmetn process. However, in doing so I have to factor in the cost; if I am not selected, it still feels like someone is saying "you are not worthy"; at the same time I find it hard to trust that most of the selection processes I have gone through really are seeking God's will as opposed to their impression of the best candidate. Yet if I beleive God works through the processes then, even if they get it wrong in their estimation of me, I might have to recognise that perhaps it is for the best, or at least that God means it for blessing.

You see how my theology of God and providence is sneaking out of the wording there? Can you see the struggle between a view of God who is Calvinistically Sovereign [and therefore pretty directly responsible for the bad stuff] and a view of God which is more 'open'/'process' and where the theological motif is the Lamb on the throne and God's sovereignty is worked out in and through and redemptively vis-a-vis human and created freedoms? I lean most to the latter but the former has some heavy thelogical hitters on its side and so I can't entirely discount it.
circle of pneuma: Guidance: