I get a lot of these kinds of email from people wanting to know God’s will for their life, and despite many prayers and hours contemplating what that might be, they don’t think they are gtting any closer to an answer. Maybe we are asking God for information he can’t really give, or at least if he does we will misunderstand that. In my younger years, I was in that situation a lot, looking for answers God didn’t seem to want to give. It was frustrating and made me doubt whether I could listen to him at all. Now as I look back on my life with the gift of age I see how impossible it would have been for God to answer a prayer like that. What would he have said back then given the arc my life has taken. I’ve done lots of things in lots of different seasons, and in the end I think it was far important important that I become a free person in his love than that I
I got this from Jim just this morning:
I have been reading and listening to many of your resource) at Life Stream for two years now. My relationship is getting closer with Him on a daily basis but I still am seeking some answers to unknown questions. I have held the questions in front of Him for almost two years but no certain answer has fallen into my heart. Questions like, what is my next step Lord?
What do you want me to do as a career? Also, what do you have for me today Lord? I am totally open to Him and His direction. Am I missing something?
Here’s how I responded: I’m glad some of our resources have been helpful to your journey and grateful you’d take the time to let me know. As to your question, I’m not sure what you are looking for? Are you looking for God to tell you to go be an airplane pilot, or university professor, or a carpenter? Honestly, I don’t know that it works that way. If he had something to tell you about any of that, I suspect he would in a way you’d understand. Otherwise he wants to live your life with you? His will is mostly about shaping you with is love and making you a better lover in the world, wherever you are doing whatever you do.
What does your skill set, desires, or opportunities draw you toward? Can you make a living at it? When I ask God for these things, I don’t expect an answer out of the blue, but I anticipate that he will direct my paths as I go through my day, living inside my godly desires, with an eye on him if he has something to nudge me toward. It’s a process, where we mostly stumble into the things God has for us, rather than he tells us what to do and we go about trying to make it happen. If that makes sense… In other word we don’t live our lives from a divine strategy he gives us, but by our growing ability to live inside his love as we navigate the life that is before us one day at a time. That’s the adventure of it. We don’t have to know where he’s leading, only that we’re following him as best we see him. .
I don’t know what his next steps in me are, or what he wants me doing next month. I simply follow his nudges each day. Some of the best things I’m involved in today, I didn’t set out to do. One small decision, led to another door, and a decision there led to a different opportunity and his will just unfolded as I lived alongisde him. Now I look back and see more clearly what he was doing in my life through all those things, but at those times I was mostly clueless, except to follow my passion and my conscience as I best understood them. You, too, may be looking for something that he doesn’t give. He doesn’t want to control every detail of your life, but to be include alongside you as you learn to live in his love…
