It seems that God never intended for me to grow complacent while waiting for His direction.
I tend to get comfortable with my present while waiting for God to call. Then when He says to go, I hesitate. I convince myself that I must have misheard Him. He certainly could not be calling me to leave my comfort. Could He?
But that call is not unprecedented. He told Abrahm,
“… Go forth from your country … to the land which I will show you” —Genesis 12:1
He didn’t even tell him where he was going!
God essentially told Abrahm, “Don’t get comfortable. Start moving and I will guide your steps. But it’s time to go.”
I complain that I don’t know where to go or what to do when I get there. I am afraid to move from the known into the unknown.
Then God told Gideon,
“But if you are afraid to go down, go … down to the camp …” —Judges 7:10
What? “If you’re afraid to go, go?”
Yes! Go anyway.
God has a plan. And He will be going with me.
Sometimes God clearly tells me to do something that I simply don’t want to do. Like when he told Johah,
“Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” —Jonah 1:2
God already knew that Jonah wouldn’t want to go. But God had a plan and Jonah was part of it. So He told Jonah to go.
“Wait a minute” I protest, “I haven’t heard God call me to go anywhere.”
But Jesus told His disciples,
“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” —Matthew 28:19
Jesus has called me. He told me to “Go…”
So what am I to do? What does “go” look like?
It may just mean that I must move. And keep moving.
If I haven’t heard a specific call, I ask God to show me where I can start, and I go there.
When I find it difficult to discern God’s voice, I start with the intersection of my greatest desire and the world’s greatest need and move out from there until I can see a place where my gifts fit. Then I move in that direction.
Always, I bathe my movement in prayer. If this is not the direction He has called me to, He can redirect me.
It is easier to redirect a ship that has already set sail and is moving through the ocean than it is to prepare a ship that is at anchor.
Life has become a journey moving from one adventure to another. Serving God all along the way. Sometimes in big ways. Usually in small, mostly unseen ways. But all along, seeking Him and His righteousness, and allowing Him to prepare and lead me according to His plan.
So I refuse to allow myself to become too comfortable.
I will not demand to see the whole plan before I obey.
I will not require a detailed roadmap before I move.
I will continue to put one foot in front of the other and walk by faith — not because I see the whole road, but because I trust the One who does.
His Word is not a spotlight on the horizon. It is a lamp for the next step.
And that is enough.
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light to my path. —Psalms 119:105