“The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in Him; though he may stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” Psalm 37:23-24 NIV
Our lives are a series of steps. We can’t progress to the next step in our journey until we complete the step that we are on. We move in and out of seasons and transition into different phases of life. That’s how it works.
I don’t have a problem with this. I like the idea of moving in steps. I just want to know what the steps are. I just want to see the whole staircase. I want to have the assurance and the peace that comes from knowing where I’m headed.
My heart’s desire is to please God with my entire being and my entire life. I want to make the right choices so that I can follow the path that He has for me. But I battle with the fear that I’ll make the wrong choice and mess everything up. It’s funny to voice my fear out loud, because then I realize how ridiculous it is to assume that I am powerful enough to mess up God’s plans. Pretty sure that the God that created the universe isn’t biting his nails hoping that I don’t mess with His flow. Nonetheless, it’s still something that I worry about and stress myself out over.
My fear of messing things up stems from the fact that I doubt my own ability to hear from God clearly. Maybe some of you feel that from time to time too. The thing is that God is bigger than all of that. His power is greater than our weakness. When He speaks into our lives, His greatness is able to push back the limitations of our own human frailty.
And HE IS A GOOD GOD. He is good. Period. Why do I think that a good God would see my heart to please Him and allow me to stumble around in the dark anyways? He wouldn’t. That’s just crazy talk.
Lately, I have been clinging to the promise that He will lead me. This is an interesting season of transition for me and I have no clue what anything is going to look like for me when it’s all said and done. But I do know that He promises to walk me through it.
I love what God says to us in Psalm 32:8, “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.” God never loses sight of us. He is there for every step of the journey. We always have His complete attention.
In my relationship with Jesus, God has only revealed to me one step at a time. He does this to build my trust in Him and my confidence in Him. If I knew the whole blueprint, I would arrogantly assume that I could handle it on my own. To spare me from my own stupidity, God, by His mercy, reveals only one step. In this way, I am ultra-aware of my need for Him and my dependence on Him.
When I begin to allow worry to creep in, thinking about what the next year, month, week and even day is going to look like, I sense Jesus asking me, “What about today Theresa? Can you trust me with today?” I usually have enough sense to realize God is going to help me make it through the next 24 hour period. He tells me, “Let’s start there. You and I, together, are going to make it through today. And the thing that you are worried about, when we get to that point, I’ll be right by your side helping you through that too. But for now just be here with me in the moment and trust me.”
