waiting v wisdom

bumped into andrew hong again and he encouraged me (again) to blog on various things.

here's a summary of a lot of cultural insights that maybe worthwhile to a lot of people.

1. the theology of 'waiting'

1.1 background to thought

i have been exposed to this in various forms in the past weeks:

* during a meeting, when asked a committee member whether a decision should be made (i try to achieve consensus). he wanted to wait and pray about it.

* some people recommend the form of guidance is pray and wait.

* there has been a big church wide decision that requires vote casting. i wonder how many of those that cast votes

1.2 theological background

* there are various people that advocate waiting as a spiritual thing to do. Although there are also western manifestations of this, there is also a chinese strand of thought that is derived from Watchman Nee, with an example of this in 'The Spiritual Man, p.620'
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=R8y9mWsz5PwC&pg=PA620&lpg=PA620&dq=watchman+nee+waiting&source=bl&ots=oHadE4bntL&sig=p5E4cv9qvWTKLVvj-Mu2rBesFSc&hl=en&ei=xiKZTaPVJ4XCcY_h-ZMH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

( i am sure andrew has a much more well argued and well researched view on this point, but i'll have to trawl through his teasure trove of blogs!).

But from a brief read of his writings and my limited understanding, some concluded waiting seems to be the spiritual thing to do when making a decision

it may have to do with a dualistic view that regards anything of the flesh, including the mind, as carnal, and hence unfit to make spiritual decisions.

1.3 what do i think of it?

I believe that waiting can be good, but it cannot be in the place of using a Christ transformed mind in using our wisdom in making decisions (Romans 12:1-2). Christ does not condemn creation but rather redeems it (cf Col 1:15-23, Romans 8). Hence it is important to reject dualistic views and train people to have a ever transformed mind to make decisions in accordance to the revealed will of God in the bible and also train people to make decisions according to the doctrines formed from his revelation.

1.4 a small excursis

andrew recommends that i should publish a book on my views, but as a carnal man, i should pray about it and wait :)...