When you’re thinking about stepping out in a new life direction, you should get advice. But be careful whom you ask for input. Not everyone is qualified to give you guidance about stepping out by faith.
I mention the need to get wise and experienced counsel in Episode 10 of The FaithWalker’s Podcast.
There may be voices in our life that we respect, but if they have never attempted to do what we are contemplating, we should take their input with a grain of salt.
We worship what we fear. If it’s God, that’s a good thing. He should be feared. He’s God. But my own journey to find my calling forced me to ask myself a question that may be helpful for you. Do you worship your next paycheck?
One of the biggest challenges to stepping out in a new life direction is money. I’m going to unpack some strategies and insights about that challenge in the coming weeks.
Let’s start by thinking about this statement: “I don’t know where my next paycheck is coming from.”
Does it strike fear into your soul? Pity? Or joy at the possibility of amazing opportunity?
Finding your life direction requires figuring out your strengths. I shared about how I discovered my strengths in this post. But for the Christian seeking to live an authentic life, it will take more than an awareness of strengths to find God’s best for your life.
It will take a Kingdom awareness.
Our strengths reside where our passions and talents unite. So if we devote the bulk of our time to doing things where those two intersect, we will be more productive and more fulfilled.
Why? Because we are doing the kinds of things God wired us to do.
You do not need to be a Christ-follower for this to be true.
But the disciples of Jesus should desire more. Jesus calls us to follow him ahead of career ambitions, the love of money, or even family ties. Our life direction priorities must align with His Kingdom priorities.
Yes, but…. Have you ever used that expression when talking to yourself or others about what God might want you to do in life? Have you ever thought you had figured it out, only to conclude that God’s best just isn’t possible for you? You are not alone.
I’ve coached a lot of people through the process of figuring out their best life direction (and it is a process!). I’ve been through it myself and must continually re-engage the process to ensure I stay on course.
I had another post planned for today to help equip you to live an authentic life. I love hearing from all of you who let me know the faith challenges you face. I then prayerfully plan posts, podcasts, and other resources (in the works) to help you get clarity and confidence for living the Christian life. But today I wanted to share a few thoughts about how to get there from here.
I’ve recently had a number of conversations with people seeking clarity on life direction, something we all crave.
I came across an intriguing but sad comment by a reader recently. He said that he once asked God for direction, but God didn’t answer. So he had to make his own way, and it hadn’t turned out well. I couldn’t help but wonder if God had not answered or if this reader simply had not listened or not liked what he heard.
In fact, he had made some pretty serious, even criminal mistakes, all of which he blamed on God for not responding to his request for direction.
I know in my own faith walk, when I choose poorly, it is often the result of trusting in my own wisdom instead of waiting for and insisting on an answer from God.
Ask just about any Christian if he or she trusts God to take them to heaven to live with Him forever, and you’ll get an immediate and resounding yes. So why do those same Christians – myself included – struggle to trust Him with all the stuff in between here and now and there and then?
Paying bills, making life decisions, navigating relationships, avoiding temptation – you name it, we worry about it. We fret about stuff we have no control over. We lose sleep trying to make sure we’ve thought of every contingency. We exhaust ourselves working to get just one more thing done or to make a few dollars more.
And then we say we trust God with the fate of our souls. Hmmm…..
When you’re trying to figure out God’s will for your life, where do you start? I shared seven questions each of us should ask to figure out What God Wants Us to Do Next here. This post is the second in a series of seven in which I share some secrets I’ve learned the hard way about discerning God’s will for your life.
In the previous post, I shared Secret #1 — If you don’t expect to hear God’s voice, you won’t attempt to listen.
Secret #2 comes from an understanding of how God led Moses and the Israelites when confronted by the challenge of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army. And from what we learned from selling our house and stepping to the unknown with six kids in tow.
If you’re a Christian struggling with a decision right now, you may be asking a lot of questions about what God wants you to do next. But are you actually expecting to get answers or just going through the motions? This post is the first of seven in which I share some secrets I have learned about discerning God’s will for our lives when Scripture does not give us clear direction.
In my book A Story Worth Telling, I share the story of how we decided to move to Atlanta after nearly four decades of living in Northeast Ohio. I had sensed a pull in the direction of Atlanta for well over a month before I even mentioned it, first to my wife and then to my life coach Dick Savidge (I highly recommend him if you are in need of Christ-centered life-coaching.)
I’m not one to naturally put a lot of confidence in feelings. It’s just not how God has wired me.
The truth is that prayer changes everything, especially you. Yet many FaithWalkers take an accidental approach to prayer rather than carve out time and space for intentional communion with God.
They pray as they go through life, sort of like grabbing whatever food is handy throughout the day. That practice may quench the hunger pangs at the moment, but it doesn’t make for a healthy diet. I call it “multitasking prayer,” and it can have disastrous results.
Like texting and driving, it is deceptively dangerous because we appear to get away with it many times before disaster actually strikes. Much research has now demonstrated that texting and driving can slow the reaction time of a driver to the same extent as if he or she were drunk.
I can’t help but think that God must hear our hurried, distracted prayers at times and wonder whether we are more than slightly inebriated.
I’m sure you’ve heard the common defense for multitasking prayer: Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17), keeping an attitude of nonstop prayer, as stuff comes to mind throughout the day. Yet many use this as an excuse to turn from intentional, continual prayer to a set of accidental prayers, which don’t form a full communion with God.
When that happens, we quickly become like the hiker who snacks on energy bars all day instead of pausing by the trail to prepare balanced, nutritious meals. The quick bites of fellowship with the Almighty may satisfy some immediate hunger pang, but if that’s the complete diet, your faith will soon become lean and malnourished, unfit to respond when tested.
Imagine how your life would be different if you spent three hours every day in focused, intentional prayer. Most of us believe we wouldn’t get much else done.
And yet here is the counterintuitive way one man described his take on focused, intentional prayer: “I have so much to do today that I will spend the first three hours in prayer.”
The man’s name was Martin Luther. As a key figure of the Reformation, he lived a story of tremendous worth. His thinking leads us to this conclusion: if you think you don’t have time to pray, that’s exactly when you know you should.
Another person who accomplished great things for God, most notably helping to bring an end to the horrific slave trade of his day, was William Wilberforce. Though he seemed to be always in motion, this dynamo for justice recognized that he was too weak to do worthy work when he failed to make time to pray: “The shortening of private devotions starves the soul; it grows lean and faint. I have been keeping too late hours.”
Most revealing of all, Jesus himself regularly took time to step away from the crowds and hurried pace in order to pray (Mark 1:35; Luke 11:1; Hebrews 5:7). Let the weight of that truth sink in.
When God himself, “who was tempted in every way that we are, except without sin” (Hebrews 4:15), walked the earth as one of us, he considered uninterrupted seasons of prayer to be essential for his earthly journey.
The bottom line is this: the FaithWalker who longs to live a story worth telling knows it simply can’t be done without intentionally investing time for faith to find its voice in prayer.
Question: How what place does prayer have in your faith journey? What prayer tips do you have to share with other FaithWalkers? Share your thoughts by clicking here.
Photo credit: Dingzeyu Li
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