How to Know God’s Will: The Mueller Method

First I seek to get my heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to the matter at hand. Ninety percent of the trouble with people generally is right here. Ninety percent of the difficulties are overcome when our hearts are ready to do the Lord’s will, whatever it may be. When you are truly in this state of totally seeking only God’s will, you are usually very close to the knowledge of what His will is. God, whatever You tell me to do, I’ll do it.

Having first done this, I do not leave the result to feelings or simple impression. If I did that, I would be susceptible to great delusions.

Next, I seek the will of the Spirit of God through reading the Bible. The Spirit and the Word must be combined. If I look to the Spirit alone without reading the Word, I lay myself open to great delusions. When the Holy Spirit guides us, He does it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them. God never contradicts Himself.

Next, I take into account providential circumstances. As I pray, I look for doors that open and watch for doors that close. These often plainly indicate God’s will in connection with His Word and Spirit.

I then ask God in prayer to reveal His will to me correctly.

Thus through prayer, the study of the Word, and personal reflection, I come to a deliberate judgment according to the best of my ability and knowledge. If my mind is then at peace and continues so after three or more times of prayer, I proceed accordingly.

I have found this method is always effective for major as well as minor things.

Taken from Simple Trust Simple Prayers: Life-Changing Lessons from the Journals of George Mueller by Cindy Mallin, Appendix B, pp. 103-104.

You Want Answers to Your Prayers?

Here Are Five Conditions:

1. Entire dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ. His merits and intervention are the only basis for any claim to blessing. (See John 14:13-14; 15:16)

2. Separation from all known sin. Psalm 66:18: “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.”

3. Faith in God’s Word. If I don’t believe what God says, I imply that God is a liar and perjurer. Hebrews 11:6: “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (See also vv. 13-20.)

4. Ask according to His will. Our motives must be godly. We must not seek any gift from God just to satisfy our own lusts. (See 1 John 5:14; James 4:3.)

5. Persistence in prayer. We must wait on God and wait for God. (See James 5:7; Luke 18:1-8.)

Taken from Simple Trust Simple Prayers: Life-Changing Lessons from the Journals of George Mueller by Cindy Mallen, Appendix A, p. 102.

Weekly Wrap-up Nov. 9

Hobby Lobby and Mardel’s Inspire Crafts and Creativity

Gary and I had a date night for our Anniversary (number 24!), and I chose to go to Mardel’s Christian and Education Store. We had never been to one before. Wow! We were both like kids in a candy shop. There was something for everybody there. I just walked around looking at everything. Gary went one way, and I went the other. Of course, I ended up in the education department. I saw little prize toys and pencils and pads and remembered how much I used to love earning those things in Good News Club with my teacher, Evelyn Gilmer (who still calls me from time to time to see how I’m doing – she’s 95 years old now!).

I picked out 15 pencils, some bean bags, notebook pads, yo-yo’s, etc. and decided I would make a treasure chest for my kids. I will use it to motivate my kids to memorize things as the Spirit leads and to reward good behavior.

So far, I’ve let them pick out things from it when they cleaned, when they did schoolwork on a Saturday, and when they obeyed quickly.

Kelsey helped me decorate the treasure chest. She’s very artistic, and she has seen lots of treasure chests in the video games that she plays.

Abby picked a prize that was pretty and pink. It was tiny beads in a little bottle. She and Emma started stringing these itty bitty beads all by themselves. I was amazed that they could even do it. After a while they got tired of it, but they did really well, and I was glad they were working on fine motor skills without any direction or prompting.

Garrett picked this ball and cup toy that he earned by doing school work on a Saturday.

He about knocked himself silly a few times!

Fingerpainting

I went to Hobby Lobby for several reasons. Kelsey had been asking to go. I needed some magnets for the little girls to use on our metal trays for different activity sheets. I wanted fingerpaint for a neat craft idea I found on Pinterest.

After I got home, Garrett looked through the craft supplies I had bought. He exclaimed, “Mommy, you’ve outdone yourself!”

Look at what beautiful creations you can make with fingerpainting and leaf patterns! I got this idea from Jones Design Company. I originally got there from here: Amanda Christina’s Pinterest board – Fall Kids Crafts

We were supposed to put glitter on our wet paint creations, but I couldn’t find the box that has our glitter in it. I can’t wait until we get to where we want to settle so we can unpack all of our boxes! I quickly drove to the Family Dollar that is really close to our house, but they didn’t have glitter. I had to get confetti! But it worked pretty well.

Abby wanted this box of jewels. She and Emma grabbed these jewels and promptly started sorting them by color. I hadn’t said a word. It just shows that if you provide the supplies, kids will learn and develop skills with them. You don’t have to work real hard or plan all kinds of lessons. Just try to keep a kid from learning! You can’t do it!

A few more crafty things they did.

Miniature Golf and Plush Convocation

I took the six youngest kids to the park to get them out of the house (and to divert Abby’s attention from her many problems). Sometimes they just need a change of scenery to get them to stop being whiny and bratty. Sometimes they need to work off extra energy. So I loaded littles and mediums in the van and took them to the park. After playing on the swings and slides for a while, Emma had to go to the bathroom, so I took her into the community building. There she found golf clubs and colored golf balls. I decided to ask about the miniature golf and ended up registering the whole family. They have a pool there, too, so we may take the kids swimming there some time. Emma picked out a golf club her size and the color of ball she wanted. We went and got the rest of the kids and they picked out their golf gear. Then they played a rousing game of miniature golf. They had lots of fun!

Kelsey ordered a kit and put together these characters from a game she plays. It had very intricate, detailed instruction for putting them together and took her several hours to assemble them.

Kelsey has a menagerie of stuffed animals and plushes as she calls them. She brings them all out together sometimes and has a convocation of all of them from time to time. She sets them up in groups and puts them in various scenarios. The platypuses are the choir. Their beaks are pointing up in the air because they are singing. She and Morgan do voices for them and they act out all kinds of scenes. They are in their own world as they do this, and they laugh hilariously. Sometimes they get so loud that we have to go in and tell them to quiet down.

Do your kids do crazy things like this together?

Gary’s First Birthday – in Texas

We have a tradition of Patrick lighting the candles. I think we are trying to satisfy his “firebug” desire (which seems to be genetic).

This is most, but we’re missing a few. They’ll show up to help eat the cake!

Kelsey outlined the numbers of Gary’s age with the candles we had. She made a 4 and a 6, in that order. We did not want smoke alarms going off or fire trucks visiting the house.

A rare treat! He does smile. But hardly ever for pictures. And a cheesy smile at that!

Good looks run in the family, don’t ya think? But we all know what’s most important – owning a fancy car! Ha!

Somebody turned the light on when we finished singing and the light bulb blew! So we all sat in the dark for a couple of minutes until we found another light switch to turn on.