Moving Forward

Monday May 6, 2019

Are you waiting for something to happen? You’ve prayed about it. You’ve made plans. You pray about it some more. You revise your plans. But nothing is happening.

What’s missing from this picture? Movement. There are many examples of people in the Bible doing great things for God. Did that just happen? How did God use them? 

As I’ve been studying the Bible book of 1 Samuel, I’ve noticed that the nation of Israel fought in wars. Sometimes they won and sometimes they lost. Sometimes they consulted the religious leaders and sometimes they did not. But one thing is true in every instance: The people did not sit around and wait for something to happen. They moved ahead and God worked. 

I’ve been planning for sometime to revise my website. Maybe you have similar goals in mind: improving your advertising, learning a new computer program, praying for new speaking engagements or sales presentations. But I wasn’t moving ahead. I was stuck in the planning and praying places. The tasks seemed overwhelming; just too big for me to handle effectively on my own. I even sought advice – a lot of advice. But it took just doing it – moving ahead – for God to show me that it wasn’t as hard as I thought. 

God directs our steps, but we have to take the steps. By standing still, we cannot move anywhere. Not taking the steps means staying where we are. And, it’s not likely that we will see God work if all we do is stand still. 

I’m not saying that prayer and planning are not important. I’m saying that until we take some kind of action we may not see God move. Praying and planning are important for determining a direction to move in. It gets on our hearts what’s on God’s heart. Then we know which direction we should move. 

If we have prayed and planned, what steps are we taking so God can move. God lights the path in front of us (Psalm 119:105), but we have to step out onto it before the next part of the path is lit. I’m going to begin moving today. What about you?