Moving forward in God's will
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
I was staring at the log that crossed the creek in front of me. I was trying not to look down at the 10' deep crevice between the log and the water below. If the log was on flat solid ground, I'm sure I could have jumped up on it and had no problem walking down it. But I was a little scared or falling off the log and into the rocky creek below. But, there was a bull elk bugling on the other side and time was wasting... I made the decision to go for it.
A friend messaged me yesterday and told me that things seemed to be falling apart in life. He was doing his best to keep his focus on God and it didn't seem as though life was going anywhere. He is really struggling. I thought deep about how to answer... how do I respond? What does God want me to pass along? The best I could do is advise to keep your eyes and heart on out all loving God. We have so many options in life... we must move forward in faith.
I crossed the log on the elk hunt... we didn't catch up to the elk, but we did what we thought was right. We all come to places like this in life, all the time. We see what we feel is the right direction to go, but is it the right time and place to cross? Decisions, decisions...
How many times have we heard people say, "God has a perfect plan for your life"? We keep waiting for that plan to appear and a neon sign to point the direction to go. But God rarely works that way.
Over the last several years I've found that we spend so much time seeking God's will for our lives that we stop looking for God. We're so worried we might miss something that He is trying to show us we become paralyzed and can't move forward without a sign of some sort. All of a sudden anything that might happen to us, becomes a "sign" from God and we jump just to make something happen in our life. We fail to live out His perfect will day to day for fear we might be wrong. Then we get nervous and bolt forward just to do something... Anything.
God knows that we aren't perfect. He knows that we will make mistakes. If that wasn't true, then Jesus came and died for nothing. God wants us to be bold. To remain close to Him and move forward.
We have to trust God and stay close to Him. This means seeking wisdom, talking with... and listening to God in continual prayer and scripture reading, and looking to see where He is working in the world around us. It also means obeying God's Word, even when doing so seems costly.
Those that were faithful who have gone before us were no different than you or me. And the same keys to living life in step with God are available to us today as those that have already lived it out in the past. Those that we read about in the Old and New Testament, that seem spotless, struggled with following God as well. David obviously strayed from God's perfect plan, by committing adultery and murder, yet by the end of his life, he was called a "man after God's own heart"...why? Because he started again to follow God's plan. If you believe David had it easy... I challenge you to read Psalms 13 this morning. David is down, he is crushed. Yet David follows God and comes out of it.
Moses didn't know where he was leading God's people... But he trusted God (off and on) and moved forward. God saw Moses's faults and failures... But He led him and the people through the desert. He will see you through as well when we seek Him out day by day.
Life is short and chances to make a difference in this life come and go... Don't miss out of serving God by standing at the edge and being paralyzed with fear... Jump in and make a difference.
God will catch you.
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