You think you know the direction God would have you to go. You believe you have clarity about your next steps to do what God designed you to do. You may even want to leave your current job and step out in a new direction. But your spouse doesn’t see it. What do you do?
A reader actually sent me this question recently. It’s one I receive fairly frequently from Christians trying to figure out God’s best for their lives. And it is an important one.
Stepping out before you know how it all turns out—that’s what faith is all about. But many Christians embrace the false notion that it should be easy, or at least simple. And if it’s not, God isn’t in it.
But when we look at Scripture, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, there is one thing we know we will encounter every time we change direction in life—resistance.
Smack dab in the middle between real life and real faith is—real fear. Fear of failure. Fear that we’ll look foolish. Fear that everyone will laugh when we do fail. Fear that __________ —fill in the blank with your own fear. There’s no shortage of reasons to be afraid. But how can we stop being afraid?
I believe that for those who have trusted in Christ as their only hope, God has not left us to be paralyzed by the unknown.
Instead, His Word gives us 7 steps for overcoming fear and rising victoriously above the challenges that come our way.
That’s not to say it will be easy.
So you want to step out in a new life direction. But you’re afraid. That’s normal. Fear often keeps us from moving forward. What if I showed you the steps needed to move forward with clarity, confidence, and abundant faith to live an authentic life adventure?
First let me acknowledge that I did not follow all of the steps I am about to share with you—not intentionally anyway. Some I had to learn the hard way.
Do you know where you are headed next in life? Do you know where you should be headed next? If you’re like a lot of us, you may have accidentally fallen into a life direction instead of intentionally choosing your best path.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, it shouldn’t be that way.
God created each one of us with unique strengths, passions, and skills sets. He gave us each unique relationship connections that open doors of opportunity unavailable to others.
And He expects us to use it all to more fully reveal His majesty on earth as it is in heaven.
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.
When you’re considering stepping out in a new life direction, you should not expect it to always be easy. There is a learning curve that each of us must experience at the start of anything new.
The curve can be scary when you’re in it, even bewildering and disorienting. That is normal.
Let me repeat that: it is normal to find the curve to be challenging.
Following your new life direction will be scary at times. You will experience turbulence.
When you step out in a new life direction it is almost always going to be harder than you thought it would be.
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.
Every day it seems I wrestle with feeling like a failure. You probably don’t have this problem. My plans don’t work out. I don’t achieve what I thought I could have. And then I don’t have time to post the appearance of success on social media so everyone else can think I have it together and they don’t.
Our social media connected world often gives the false impression that some people have arrived.
These people post all sorts of positive stuff all the time. They seem to accomplish so much. They are perceived as the experts in [fill in the blank]. It only makes it worse when we compare our life to what seems to be their perfect world.
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…..
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