“God, You are my God; I eagerly seek You. I thirst for You; my body
faints for You in a land that is dry, desolate and without water.”
Psalm 63:1
You can’t fake desperation. I so remember the times on my
face — sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively — praying for God to make
His way clear:
committing my life to full-time Christian service, deciding
what to study in college; if Joe was the right man for me; through eight years
of infertility; through the premature births and deaths of our first three
children; my pregnancy with Lauren; moving overseas as international Christian
workers; Alli’s adoption.
through my kids’ preschool, elementary, middle, high school
and now college years; seeking ministries where I could make God known in the
Philippines, South Korea and Thailand; returning to the U.S.; accepting a job;
buying a house …
and on and on and on.
“Lord, don’t leave me alone until we are where You want us
to be,” I’ve prayed more times than I can count, seeking to know God’s will.
And I’ve been asked more times than I can count: How can I
know God’s will for my life?
But what if it isn’t about “knowing God’s will,” a friend
noted just yesterday in a conversation over coffee.
For the past two years, I’ve been trying to figure out what
God wants me to do, I lamented. I’ve explored different ministries, trying to
go beyond the church walls, but nothing seems to fit.
“What if it isn’t about knowing God’s will?” my friend said.
“What if it’s just about knowing God?”
Well, duh.
How easily we forget that simple lesson in our quest for personal
significance: God reveals Himself most clearly when we are desperately seeking
Him — rather than what we can do for Him.
And sometimes, He isn’t calling us to “minister.” Sometimes,
He is just calling us to “be” — a wife, a parent, a daughter, a neighbor, a
friend. No fanfare. No stage. Just knowing Him in the day-to-day with none of
the confusion and anxiety that comes from trying to “figure it out.”
“Abide in me, and I will abide in you,” Jesus said in John
15:4. Then we will bear fruit.
If we are going to be desperate, let’s be desperate to know
Him. As we seek Him — waiting, watching and listening — opportunities to serve
Him will come. Sometimes those opportunities involve proclaiming the gospel
loudly, influencing large numbers of people. Sometimes those opportunities mean
standing quietly alongside a friend who is struggling, praying with her through
the hurt and the sin and the mess.
God simply asks us to be obedient — to know Him — right
where we are.
#travellight
This week’s reading: 1
Samuel 25-31, 2 Samuel 1-4, Psalm 6, 8-10, 14, 16-19, 21, 35, 54, 56, 63,
120-121, 123-125, 128-130, 140-142,
Post #16: Discovering how
to live missionally through a chronological reading of God’s Word
Labels: Bible studies, Bible study, chronological Bible reading, confusion, desperation, Devotionals, God's will, God's Word, TravelLight
