My year-end “Faith Inventory & Review” was interrupted this past weekend when I got really sick. We were in the middle of a trip to celebrate our birthdays and laying on my back gave me A LOT of time to work on that review. I would never CHOOSE that approach, but God used it in a powerful way by having the question WHAT’S NEXT dominate my thoughts about where he wants me to go in 2022. I hope you are asking the same question for your own faith walk.
The starting point on this part of the exploration begins with one of the most common aphorisms in Christianity: “Let Go, Let God.” It’s the perfect set up for the question WHAT’S NEXT?
Of course, there is nothing wrong with Let Go, Let God. It is a powerful reminder that GOD IS IN CONTROL, NOT US. But it needs a companion, action-oriented follow-up step to start moving and activate or re-activate our faith.
This comes AFTER we acknowledge our weaknesses and helplessness to God (Let Go, Let God). It comes AFTER we LISTEN to what he says about our circumstances. It comes AFTER realizing that WE have a role to play going forward.
Then we start moving and acting…and go back to God in prayer and repeat the cycle again—pray to God, listen for direction, seek his promise, and take more action…repeatedly.
One of this ministry’s online followers, we’ll call her Jane, told us she is so busy trying to keep up with life and navigate through the circumstances and challenges it generates every day that she could never see herself asking God WHAT’S NEXT?
This is exactly what we all need to hear so we can see the trap of waiting until everything in life is “perfect” before asking God WHAT’S NEXT. In the middle of life’s slipstream is PRECISELY the time to ask God WHAT’S NEXT! Why? Because life will never reach the idealistic point of equilibrium and harmony.
That kind of harmony and balance is impossible to find, but the NEXT STEP is right there waiting for us to take.
Here’s the main point: Whatever God pushes you to do next will be designed with those life circumstances and challenges in full view! He has the entire story completed. We just need to ask WHAT’S NEXT and then DO whatever he says is next.
I ask God to give me the strength to constantly ask him WHAT’S NEXT so I am always in his will and direction and never relying on my own decision-making on what to do next.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What will God say when you ask him WHAT’S NEXT?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.” Proverbs 3:5-6
