So What's the Next Step?

To be honest, I’m in a really weird time of my life right now. It’s a good time, but it’s also a scary and stressful time. I’m almost finished with high school and I’m trying to figure out what the next step is. I have so many dreams, and I don’t know where to start. I can get so overwhelmed, and it’s like I just want God to write on the wall and tell me exactly what He wants me to do. However, more times than not, it doesn’t work that way. God has been teaching me so much about trust that I thought I would share some of it with you today. 

Sometimes, I can get so frustrated that I start questioning God’s plan for me. I don’t know what the next step is, so I start to think maybe God does not know what He is doing after all. I start to wonder what God’s plan for me actually is and if it really is a good plan. Have you ever been there? I’m sure some of you have. Satan loves to make us question God’s true intentions for us. If the Devil can get us to doubt God, then I bet he could get us to disobey God. In 1 Samuel 7:12 it says, “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” When Satan tries to feed me doubt, this small verse gives me such assurance. The 7 words of this verse teaches us that we can look back at God’s faithfulness in the past when we start to doubt His plan for the future. Even when you don’t know what God is doing right now, you do know that He has been faithful to you in the past. He has never forgotten to sustain your pulse; He’s sustained you throughout your life thus far. He hasn’t failed you yet, so what makes you think He is going to start doing so now? That’s one of the beautiful things about the Gospel; you can have complete faith in God without having complete understanding of what He is doing. So, even when He isn’t writing on the wall and telling me exactly what the next step is, I can still “sing the Lord’s praises, for He has been good to me.” (Psalm 13:6)

While this is all great insight, my question still stands. What’s the next step, God? I have wrestled with this question for quite some time and continue wrestling with it.  However, I feel God has given me an answer. I think it can apply to a lot of our situations. It’s not really the answer we want when we are asking God what to do, but it’s the answer I think He is trying to give all of us. God is calling us to trust Him. It’s that simple. He just wants us to trust and follow Him. We might not know where we are going, but we know Who we are following. Do you hear the tender voice of our Savior? He is asking us, “Do you trust me?”  It’s a yes or no answer, yet we try to fit in our how, when, where, what, who, and why.  We try to ask about every detail and God is just saying, “Trust me, I’ll guide you where I want you to go.”

I do not say this truth to you lightly today. This is hard to swallow and difficult to do. However, it is so necessary for us to trust God. We have to realize that we can’t do it on our own. Our best option really is to trust God to guide us to the next step of our journey. 

If you have any questions, comments, or topics you would like me to write about feel free to email me at christy@tonynolan.org . I love getting emails from my readers and I try to give the best advice and answers that I can. Hope to hear from you soon and thanks for reading.