God Knows Exactly What to Do

I thought I was making good progress when it came to trusting in God’s ways. I wrote about the topic several months ago. I’ve been striving to let the Lord lead me to the places He wants to take me, even if that means traversing a very different road than I would have thought. And I’m seeing that it’s a beautiful thing. To let Him lead. To see what He sees as beautiful.

But I’ve been facing so many doubts lately.

Wondering if I’m really hearing from God or if I’m telling myself things. Doubting God’s voice when what I see doesn’t look like anything is happening. And it’s caused me to notice a pattern lately: Not knowing what God is doing in my life…followed by discouragement.

I like to know what’s coming.

I like to know what God is doing.

But I’m realizing I don’t get to have that security clearance, if you will.

Knowing what God is up to is like a whole other secret level of a building that I don’t have access to.

And I’m learning that the hard way right now.

I feel like I’m at a point where I am ready for the next phase of my life. And I feel more prepared now than I ever have been.

But it’s as if I’m at the end of a diving board…waiting to jump in… and I’m getting a Wait from the one in charge.

And it took me a while to get up to this spot. Climbing a diving board ladder knowing that the jump is going to be scary, and seeing the dreadful height and the distance between yourself and the ground… it’s terrifying. But eventually you commit to take the risk. You stand there, feet lifting off the ground, and you decide to jump. It took a lot for God to get me to this point. And after all that, I can’t even jump. He’s telling me to wait. At least right now. So I’ve resorted to sitting down and waiting for my chance to jump. I’m not going to give up that easily. Not now. But it’s tempting to want to give up sometimes, isn’t it? It’s tempting to doubt what God is saying when so many things try to indicate otherwise.

So I’ve had to bring my discouragements to God, asking Him to show me how I can respond in this time of confusion.

And God’s been trying to help me see that it’s not that He’s trying to keep me from what I think I’m ready for, but that what I’m jumping into may not be ready.

God has other things that He has do first. My situation is not just about me. There will be many other people involved. And so He has to ready them as well and the whole situation.

He probably still has things to do in me too that can only be done in this time of waiting.

But right now, it’s hard for me to trust God because I don’t know what He wants me to do.

I know what I would do.

I know what I want to do.

I know what I am fully capable of doing.

But the problem here is that I’m putting all of my trust in what I am supposed to be doing that I am missing out on what God wants to do.

I’m putting too much trust in myself.

We can learn a lot about this dilemma of trusting in ourselves verses trusting God by looking at the way God interacted with His chosen people, Israel, throughout history.

In the first few books of the Bible, anytime Israel became confused about God’s ways towards them, they became frustrated.

The Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt after God rescued them because the journey to the promised land was too long. They complained about not having any food in the wilderness, forgetting that God had already been providing for them. They feared all of the people they thought were against them, even though God had already told them He would defeat them. They rebelled against God time and time again. They struggled to trust Him. And it caused them a lot of grief and tumultuous experiences.

But God kept pursuing them.

God remained faithful to an unfailthful people.

God loved the unloveable.

Even when it seemed like God had forgotten His people, He sent Jesus to break the silence of all Old Testament scripture, initiating grace and final redemption for the benefit of the whole world. And He will save a remnant of Israel. God never intends to give up on them.

I was convicted recalling this. Reminding myself that confusion over what God is doing is always an instinct because of our humanity, but never a mature thing to do. It’s wise to be okay with uncertainty.

My favorite verse is Proverbs 3:5 which tells us to not trust in our own understanding. I have to go back to that verse over and over again because I’m a person who tries to make sense of things.

But God doesn’t always need me to understand.

He knows what to do.

Even when I am clueless.

We don’t have to let confusion cloud our vision.

Believe that God has a purpose for what He does.

Even when it’s confusing.

When you focus on the goodness of God’s character even when His ways seem confusing, you remember He can be trusted.

2 Peter 3:9 says this, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (emphasis mine).

1 John 1:5 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in Him is no evil at all” (emphasis mine).

Psalm 18:30 says, “God, His way is perfect. The Word of the Lord proves true. He is a shield for all those who take refuge in Him” (emphasis mine).

God’s ways might still confuse me at times.

But it’s okay because I know the One in charge is good at being God.

When you’re confident that God’s character is good, you will be much more at peace with what He is doing behind the scenes.

For His character motivates His ways.

So if His character is good, then His ways are also good.

In the last movie of The Hobbit series, there was a scene that really stood out to me. The dragon is terrorizing the town, scorching the town with his fiery flames. Bard, one of the main characters, shoots arrows at the dragon from a tall lookout. But to no avail. Then he sees that his son has come up there with him. At first he is worried for his son’s safety, but then the son gives him a long spear that he can use. So as Bard sees the dragon coming straight at him and his son, he positions the spear on his son’s shoulder using him as the support for the spear.

All the while, the son has his back to the dragon. He keeps looking over his shoulder with fright as the dragon is headed their way.

Then Bard says to his son, “Hey…you look at me. You look at me.”

And as the son looks at his father, the father shoots the spear and kills the dragon. They fall with the crash but survive and save the town from the threat of the dragon.

Ever since I saw that movie I haven’t been able to forget that scene. (You can Watch it here.)

I’m sure the son was so fearful, not knowing what would happen with a dragon unseen coming his way and a deadly spear resting on his shoulder.

But he trusted that what his father was doing was good, so he yielded to him in that moment.

It is such a brilliant picture of how we are to look to God in moments of fear and uncertainty. Not the threat. Not our circumstances. We look at God. We focus on Him. All the while He is using us more than we realize to accomplish what He wants to do. And He will take care of us.

I have to remember that in confusing moments, God is working both for my good and the good of others.

When we read the Bible, we see that God is good at leading His people where He wants them to be, even despite their own incompetence.

You and I can rest assured of God’s competence to lead us to where He wants us to be.

And that’s exciting really. I’d rather be led by God than to be led by my own self. I wouldn’t take me to the best destination. I might mess it up. But God won’t. He’s not capable of messing anything up. There’s no one in the whole universe who has more power over things than Him. He will not get it wrong.

It may take time.

But we need to appreciate that in the unknown God is trying to cultivate something.

Most of the time, God leads us to where He wants us to be by changing our desires.

If we ask Him to, He will open our eyes to what He wants for us and then He shows us how beautiful it is. And then we will want it too. He will start to lead us in that direction by the very fact that we are now compelled to go that way. And our desires will line up with His desires.

Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” This is not saying that God will just give you what you want. I think it’s saying God has created us with certain desires that He cultivates to be useful in where He wants to take us when we give our lives to Him. And that He will implant in our hearts His desires so that we will desire what He wants for us, if we ask Him to. Ask Him. See if He won’t do it.

I will never understand God’s ways of creating something from nothing. I don’t have that ability.

But God knows exactly what He is doing.

Exactly what He is doing.

We may say:

But God, what if…