Does God speak to me?

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Rock Schuler
www.stjohnsolney.org  
 

Rock Schuler was most recently the Rector (Pastor) of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Olney, Maryland. He has served as an ordained minister of the Episcopal Church since 1990 after studying for the priesthood at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. He was awarded a Doctorate of Ministry in Congregational Development in 2002. In the course of his ministry, Rock has served on an Indian Reservation, in rural Wyoming, and in major suburban areas. In addition to pastoring the people of his congregation, he has been involved in community service projects to serve the homeless, refugees, and the addicted. He’s also been involved in international outreach projects in Latin America and Africa. Rock’s spiritual roots lie in the early Christian Church, in Native American spirituality, in the liturgical worship and traditions of the Episcopal Church, and most especially in his own personal relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ. He appreciates the mystery and mysticism of the Christian faith while offering thanks for a lifelong and joyous love of Jesus. Rock, born in 1965, is from Wyoming, where he served his first two churches. He is married to Jennifer, whom he met while serving a parish outside of Philadelphia, and has two beautiful daughters, Leia and Rebecca. Rock is into science fiction and fantasy (especially "Battlestar Galactica," "Star Trek," "Lost," and "The Lord of the Rings"), movies, reading, kayaking/canoeing, hiking, and running.

Does God speak to me?

In his video, Pastor Rock Schuler talks honestly and openly about how a greater sense of the spiritual can be found. He discusses prayer and the ability to discern the Spirit in daily events, and about how to integrate spirituality into family and personal life. He brings out the distinctions between spirituality and religion, and talks about how to tell a healthy religious community from an unhealthy one. And he deals with some of the hard questions of life – how can a sense of God be found in the dark places, challenging circumstances, and tragedies of life. Overall, he affirms the desire of God for all people to live the joy of abundant life.

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How do I know Gods will for my life?

Rev. Dr. Rock Schuler: The best way to know Gods will for your life is to ask god what his will is and then listen to him, listen quietly, listen in times of prayer, listen to what other people are saying to you, listen to the coincidences that come together in your life. One archbishop of Canterbury said during the time of World War II that he was surprised how much more coincidences happened in his life when he was praying. By that he meant that coincidences lineup to show us the path that God would have us take. Saint Augustine before he was baptized was trying to figure out what God wanted him to do with his life and he chose a time-honored method. He ask God to reveal his will for him in the Bible and then he picked up the Bible, opened it up, put his finger on a passage and it was about holy Baptism. He probably had himself baptized and became one of the greatest theologian and bishop in the life of the church.

Often times, God will honor our prayers in direct ways like that, but sometime its more subtle; a lot of the time its more subtle. In those times, we should checkout with spiritually mature Christians, with spiritual guides, with people that we trust. What God might be calling us to do? We should checkout our feelings and thoughts with those people and we find that when our feelings, when our rational thoughts, when our emotions, when the advice of other people, when the word that were discerning out of the Bible and in other spiritual sources when those things come together then we begin to see and understand what Gods will is for a particular moment in our life.

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