God Is Moving!

"I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8(NLT)

By Alexandra Copeland

One of the best things that we can do in our Christian life is to seek wisdom. It will help us to discern right and wrong, as well as help us to know the difference between the truth and a lie. Everyday life presents us with choices. Some are relative easy. We have set patterns and routines that we become accustomed to, and as long as our circumstances don’t deviate a whole lot, we’re comfortable. Through our experiences, we’ve learned to handle the bumps in the road with some degree of ease, but it is inevitable that this will change. When it’s time to graduate to the next level of spiritual growth and strength, the things we’re used to get a little jumbled, and making choices and decisions become more complex.

  

Ecclesiastes 3:1(NKJV) gives us a very important piece of wisdom. In this verse, God tells us, “To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Heavenly Father is incredibly precise and consistent. Numbers 23:19 tells us that God is not a human being, and He doesn’t lie or change His mind. He doesn’t vacillate back and forth the way that we do. He says what He means and He means what He says. His ways are often mysterious to us, but we can be assured that they always make perfect sense, and the reasons behind what He does will always benefit the maximum amount of people and the maximum amount of circumstances. There are seasons and times for everything under heaven. So, it is no coincidence that there are seasons and times in our own personal lives that may not make sense to us, but will ultimately yield to the purposes of God. This is very helpful information because it solidifies that God is always mindful of what is happening with us, and He always knows what is best. 

It is also true that often we don’t know what God knows, and when it is time to make important decisions, we go left when we should be going right. Through the Psalmist, David, God tells us in Psalm 32:8(NLT), “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” God will guide us. To guide is to show the way, or to direct or influence a particular course of action. Heavenly Father makes it absolutely clear that He will take care of this part. As followers of Christ, we must make sure that we take care of our part.  

What is our part? Jesus Christ tells us in Matthew 6:33(NLT), “Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.” We need to seek God in all things, there can be no doubt about this, but particularly at those moments of indecision and times of heaviness. It is the only appropriate action. We are to seek God because He knows the answer. He knows what we should do in order to keep us on the right track.  

In these instances, I have heard some people say that they seek God through prayer and fasting, but they don’t believe they have received clarity in a way that brings the resolution they expect. There are a couple of things to consider when there’s a sense that we’re not receiving the breakthrough of revelation and blessings that we need. One is the reality that God is always moving on our behalf. There is never a time when this isn’t true. We may not sense that things are changing or being resolved, but we should have faith and total confidence that God is working them out for our good.  

As we seek God for answers to life’s dilemmas, we must also consider the possibility that sometimes we’re not as flexible to the Will of God as He needs us to be. It’s a known fact that a clear path can be made when the brush has been plowed. Clarity is achieved when obstacles that obscure our mind’s vision are mowed down. We sometimes want answers from God on the double, but we forget that His chief objective is that we grow in Christ. Growing in Christ will almost always involve taking off something that no longer serves us well, and putting on a Christ-like garment of greater love; and fastening it tight. Our stance can be one of wanting to remain at the same level so that we can hang with the same people, go to the same places, and not change up the routine we’ve become accustomed to.  

Another thing we have to consider is that we’ve received an answer from the Lord already, it’s just not the one we expected. God moves in a consistent, perfect, and legal way. He never violates His laws, and He is one hundred and fifty million percent faithful to His Word. We sometimes expect God to twist and contort to our desires, when the answer is that we need to spend more time in prayer and seek more wisdom so that we have a greater understanding of how He is moving in our lives. Yes, God is moving, and we have to learn to move with Him.  

David prayed in Psalm 25:4-5 (NLT), “Show me the right path, O Lord; point out the road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you.” To be led in the truth requires our patience to be taught the truth. We can become so indoctrinated in our way of believing, behaving, and thinking that we end up with a stronghold of something that doesn’t please God. We can go for years like this, and won’t notice it until one day, all of a sudden, WHAM!!! Something hits us out of the blue.  

It’s not punishment when something out of the ordinary happens and turns our worlds upside down. It’s not punishment when things do not turn out as we expect, or we find that we don’t have all that we need when we need it. When something happens like this, it shines a spotlight on the fact that we need to wake up to something in our spiritual walk with Christ that needs tightening. God doesn’t punish us. He corrects us. And sometimes the point of convergence for the next spiritual growth spirt meets at the apex of our seeking Him for direction about important decisions or hiccups in life.  

Colossians 3:3 (NLT) tells us, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Our lives are hidden in Christ; therefore, there isn’t anything about us that God misses. He knows every detail of our lives. So, when you’re seeking God, always open your heart and mind to the reality that He has more to give you than an answer. He’s willing to explode an avalanche of goodness and revelation in your direction; it’s up to you to open your heart and mind so that you are prepared to receive it. ■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.