Lance: How to Know if it's "of God" or "of Me"

I think the struggle to know what things are "of God" and what things are just "of me" is an ongoing one for everyone. We all have our ideas about what we'd like to see happen or what we think would be great, and some ideas are less God than others.

While there's no magic or easy way to guarantee that everything you do will always be of God, I've always thought the best way to increase the chances is to make sure other people are involved in it, especially other people in your "community." If you're the only one thinking about it or involved in it, you only have your perspective, and therefore your blind spots, guiding the process. But if other people have some input, it's a lot more likely that somebody will see something you don't and be able to say, "Wait a minute, what about this" or "Yeah, I did that once and here's what happened."

It's like if one (genderless) spouse wants a new Ibanez SR900 bass with Bartolini pickups and a thru-body neck and goes out and buys one without discussing it with the other (genderless) spouse, and then Spouse #2 says, "Have you lost your mind? If we don't pay the light bill this month they're going to cut off our electricity!"

And FWIW, I've always been a fan of allowing/encouraging people to "bloom where God has planted them," which for me just means working out of the gifts that God has given to them. If people aren't working out of their gifts, they're not going to be particularly effective or happy (or aligned with God) and their efforts are going to be unsustainable and, ultimately, less God than they could be.