Have you ever started on something, but then you second-guessed yourself. Perhaps you just were not sold on the direction you chose, or perhaps you let others discourage you.
There is a better way to live, work, and play than that.
I remember being ready in 2001 to run headlong with a project. I wondered what would happen if I put lots of money into it. I had no real solid plan of return. I felt that the project was where God wanted me, but I had not prayed about the details. Bob did not want to go that direction, so we didn’t.
Did you catch the key detail in that? The detail being that I had not prayed about the details? My enthusiasm had blinded me to what God had in store. Yes, I needed to continue in the direction that I was going, but that next step that I was wishing that I could take was not in God’s plan.
Over the years, I have learned to separate God’s plan from my own. The key to this is to take each step and run it by God. Do not attach other steps to the goal without prayer. Ultimately, I have made larger strides by waiting on the Lord than I would have made the other way.
Here are the 5 steps:
1) Know that God has a plan for your life.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:10
2) Pray about that plan.
The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Psalms 37:23
3) Ask God to give you the goal of what He would have you to do.
4) Ask God what you need to do to accomplish that goal. Be sure to ask with the right heart.
Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.
James 4:2-3
5) Ask God to show you His timing.
He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Isaiah 40:29-31
When your goal is God’s goal on God’s timing, you will have more confidence in what you are doing. Be sure it is God you are hearing, and then trust in what He tells you.
LIFE APPLICATION
Today’s challenge is to spend time with the Lord. Spend time doing both – asking and listening. Make a point to do that on a regular basis. You may be thinking that you do not have time to do it. I will tell you that you do not have the time to not do it. You will always accomplish more when you wait on Him.