I read this today, and it just splashed over me like the cool refreshing water I didn't know I was longing for. It's a beautiful answer to questions my heart has been pouring over and wrestling with.
"Here is our certainty. God is in us, and He is going to work in us to do His will and pleasure; this is the promise. And through what vehicle will He work to reveal His will except through our minds? We do not have to go chasing a will-o'-the-wisp, or strain after something outside ourselves. God is in us, working out His will and we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds that we may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God...The Lord does most of the waiting, waiting for us to get up and get going. How can the Lord stop you if you haven't started? And how can He change your direction if you aren't moving but are just standing still? You can't steer a car that is standing at the curb. Even if you move the steering wheel, nothing happens. Ask any frustrated little boy who is trying to steer his daddy's parked car! Before you can guide a car, it has to be moving. So only when we're moving can the Lord direct us. He can stop us, or let us go on, or change the course.
The psalmist says, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet," which means that the Lord will light one step at a time. When you take a flashlight out into the night, you certainly don't say, "I can't see all the way, so I'm not going to start!" Of course not! You take the step that the flashlight reveals, then you have light enough for the next step; you take that step, and the flashlight gives enough light for one more, and one more, and so you get to your [destination].
When I leave my home and start out for church on Sunday morning, I don't stop and pray on every street corner to see whether I should cross the street or not, or whether I should continue or turn back. I go happily and at peace, knowing that it is the Lord's will for me to go to church. When I come to a stoplight, I don't fret and scream and beat my head and wonder what's wrong; I just stop and wait for the light to turn green and on I go. Even as a preacher once said, "The stops of a good man are ordered of the Lord" instead of "The steps of a good man are ordered of the Lord"; if we yield our wills and commit our way unto the Lord, we can have this confidence that the Lord is directing our paths."
I hope this is as encouraging to you as it has been to me. It's Mission Emphasis Week here at Liberty, and Steve Saint brought a wonderful message to us on Monday. He was recording his mom telling her life story one more time before she died...and her cry to the Lord before she was sent overseas, before her husband was brutally killed was "Your will...in my life...no matter the cost." What an incredible testimony to the Lord, that at the end of her life, she stood by her early prayer and said that even if she had to do it all over again, she would still say "Your will...in my life...no matter the cost."
Lord, Your will...in my life...no matter the cost.
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