One thing I’ve noticed about my journey on the narrow road is how easily I get distracted by the opportunities along the way. I can become lost in looking for which direction God wants me to go. I get excited about this prospect and then I get excited about that possibility, all the while running from one thing to another, trying to figure out which is the one God wants me to do.
For those who have read Donald Miller’s A Million Miles in a Thousand Years (if you haven’t read it, you should), you will understand when I say that I truly want to live a better story. My problem is I have too many plot lines going on at once and I’m trying to pull them all together into one coherent story. It isn’t working.
I’m like the person described in James, chapter 1, who is plagued by doubt – tossed back and forth, afraid of making a mistake and missing God. I know we read that portion of Scripture and imagine the double-minded person as being unsure of his faith and is therefore wavering between belief and unbelief or between one doctrine and another. However, recently as I was reading James, I could see that a person of faith (me) could also be double-minded by moving in a thousand different directions at once.
The thing is, I’m promised the wisdom I lack – just by asking for it. Only after asking for it, I get lost in trying to figure out how to apply ‘wisdom’ to all of my various situations and find myself mired in confusion. I let uncertainty, which is just another word for doubt, rob me of the peace found in simply following Christ. Doubting, even doubting in which direction to go, brings with it a wishy-washy frame of mind resulting in hesitancy and sputtering and I end up going nowhere.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s my focus that is the problem. 1 Corinthians 1:24 & 30 refer to Christ as the wisdom of and from God. I’ve been looking for the results of wisdom, when I should be looking at wisdom – Jesus Christ. God promises to give us wisdom if we ask. In other words, if we ask we will get Jesus. Jesus, the Great Shepherd who will guide me along the paths I am to travel.
I need to get my focus off all the various possibilities and onto the One who makes all things possible.
