When You Don’t Know What to Do Next

How do we make decisions when God hasn’t given us a roadmap? Learning to abide, trust, and move forward without turning faith into a formula.

Yesterday I wrote about what it means to live inside an unfinished story.

About Joseph sitting in prison without knowing that Pharaoh was about to dream.

About Job living inside a story he could not read from beginning to end.

About how easy it is for us to read their completed stories and forget that they had to live them one ordinary day at a time.

There has been something incredibly restful for me in realizing that.

I don’t have to understand the chapter I’m in while I’m still inside it.

I don’t have to decide what the ending means from the middle.

I don’t have to look at what hasn’t happened yet and use it to determine whether God has been faithful.

I can let the story remain unfinished.

But this morning, while reading about Abram, I realized there is another question waiting for me there.

How do I live inside an unfinished story when I still have to decide what to do next?

Because rest doesn’t mean life stops requiring decisions.

Bills still have to be paid.

Jobs still have to be worked.

Doors still have to be opened or closed.

Sometimes something that once seemed fruitful begins to dry up, and eventually you have to ask:

God, are we supposed to stay here?

Are we supposed to move?

Do we keep knocking on this door?

Do we look for another one?

And when God doesn’t immediately hand me an answer, I know what I am tempted to do.

I start looking for a formula.

Just Tell Me What to Do

This is where Scripture can become dangerous in my hands.

Not because there is anything dangerous about Scripture.

Because there is something in me that desperately wants certainty.

I can read about Elijah sitting beside a brook while ravens brought him food and think:

Okay. Maybe we’re supposed to stay and trust God to provide.

Then the brook dries up and God tells Elijah to leave.

Okay. Maybe a dried-up source means it’s time to go.

Except Abraham encounters a famine and goes to Egypt, and Genesis never tells me whether God told him to go.

Later Isaac encounters a famine and God specifically tells him not to go to Egypt.

Israel stands at the Red Sea and is told to stand still and watch God deliver them.

Later Israel stands at the Jordan and the priests have to step into the water.

Joseph waits in prison.

Paul makes tents.

Sometimes Jesus withdraws.

Sometimes He walks directly into the crowd.

And I can almost hear Troy saying something he has said more than once:

“Well, God, You’ve got Yourself covered.”

Because apparently Scripture will not give me my formula.

And lately I have begun to wonder if that’s intentional.

Maybe I’m Asking Scripture for Something It Was Never Meant to Give Me

There is a reason formulas feel so comforting.

If I can figure out the principle, I don’t have to live with uncertainty.

If dried-up brooks always mean go, then I know what to do when something dries up.

If waiting always means faith, I can wait.

If stepping out always means faith, I can step.

If I can study Abraham and Joseph and Elijah closely enough, perhaps I can discover the rules that will guarantee I don’t get this wrong.

And suddenly I can turn Scripture itself into another Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Just give me the knowledge I need so I can control what happens next.

I hadn’t realized how easily I do that.

I can even do it with hearing God.

Tell me exactly what to do.

Tell me which door.

Tell me whether to stay.

Tell me whether to go.

Tell me clearly enough that I can’t get it wrong.

There is nothing wrong with asking God for direction.

But somewhere underneath my desperate need to hear perfectly can be fear.

Because if I can hear perfectly, maybe I can make the right decision.

And if I make the right decision, maybe I can secure the right outcome.

And there I am again.

Grasping.

Back to the Two Trees

This entire journey through Scripture keeps bringing me back here.

The Tree of Life.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Receive.

Or take.

Remain.

Or grasp.

Trust the Source.

Or try to become one.

And perhaps one of the hardest places to remain at the Tree of Life is when I genuinely don’t know what to do.

Troy and I have been walking through that recently with work.

Something that has provided for us has slowed dramatically.

And naturally we have begun asking:

Has this dried up?

Is it time to do something different?

Those are reasonable questions.

But the other night, as we walked and prayed, I realized I didn’t want to find a Bible story that would answer the question for me.

I didn’t want to say:

Elijah’s brook dried up and then God moved him, so this must mean God is moving us.

I didn’t want to hunt through Scripture until I found a story that looked enough like ours to tell me what to do.

I just wanted God.

So I asked Him for clarity.

And I didn’t get a five-step plan.

I got peace.

Not an answer about what Troy should do next.

Not a roadmap.

Just peace.

And for once, that felt like enough.

I could receive what He was giving me instead of grasping for what He wasn’t.

What If Abiding Isn’t a Formula Either?

I have been sitting with Jesus’ words in John 15:

“Abide in Me.”

Remain.

Stay.

Live connected to Me.

But I can turn even that into a rule.

If I’m really abiding, I won’t move until God explicitly tells me to.

Except Scripture doesn’t say that either.

Abiding isn’t passivity.

A branch isn’t passive.

It grows.

It reaches.

It buds.

It blossoms.

It bears fruit.

The issue isn’t whether the branch is doing something.

The issue is where its life is coming from.

And that has begun changing the question for me.

Maybe the question isn’t always:

Did God explicitly tell me to do this?

Maybe sometimes it is:

Can I do this while remaining connected to Him?

Can I use wisdom without becoming my own source?

Can I use common sense without assuming I’ve left God’s will?

Can I explore another possibility without deciding that I have to make it happen?

Can I knock on a door without demanding that it open?

Can I stay without making staying proof of my faith?

Can I leave without making leaving proof that I heard God?

Can I make a decision and remain teachable enough for Him to redirect me?

That feels very different from trying to get the formula right.

Abraham Didn’t Have a Roadmap Either

God told Abram to go.

And Abram went.

God told him:

I will show you.

I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you.

I will make your name great.

God didn’t hand Abram a map of the next twenty-five years.

He gave him enough for the next step.

And then Abram encountered a famine.

Genesis tells us that he went down to Egypt.

It does not tell us God instructed him to go.

It does not tell us God instructed him not to.

I find that strangely comforting.

Because I would really like Genesis to tell me.

Was Egypt the right decision?

Should Abram have stayed?

What would the faith-filled choice have been?

Tell me, and then perhaps I can use his answer to make mine.

But maybe Abram’s story isn’t there to give me Abram’s formula.

Maybe it is there to let me watch Abram learn God.

And maybe that’s what I’m doing too.

I Don’t Have to Hear Perfectly

There is another freedom in Abram’s story that I didn’t expect.

Abram doesn’t do everything perfectly.

He becomes afraid.

He makes decisions from fear.

He tries to protect himself.

He puts Sarai in a terrible position.

And God doesn’t say:

Well, you ruined it.

God’s I will remains.

That doesn’t mean our choices don’t matter.

It means God’s faithfulness isn’t hanging by the thread of my ability to hear Him perfectly.

I cannot tell you how freeing that is for me.

Because fear of making the wrong decision can become its own kind of grasping.

What if we miss God?

What if we stay too long?

What if we leave too soon?

What if I think it’s wisdom and it’s fear?

What if I think I’m waiting and I’m actually being passive?

Maybe I don’t need perfect discernment before I can take the next step.

Maybe I need relationship.

I can ask.

I can listen.

I can think.

I can use wisdom.

I can pay attention to what is happening around me.

I can make a decision with incomplete information.

And I can remain.

Because perhaps abiding isn’t waiting until God makes every decision for me.

Perhaps abiding is making decisions without leaving the relationship.

I am allowed to move without becoming my own source.

I am allowed to wait without making waiting a formula.

I am allowed to use the mind God gave me.

I am allowed to ask for direction.

I am allowed not to know yet.

I can receive what He gives me today without grasping for tomorrow’s instructions.

And if all He gives me today is peace, I can receive peace.

Tomorrow, we will walk again.

And when the next step comes, we can take it with Him.

In everything you do -eat, play, and love- may it always be seasoned with Joy!