Why I don’t fear missing out on God’s will

I’m writing today to set to rest a fear that many Christians seem to have; that being, “I’m scared I’m going to miss what God has planned for my life.”

This specific concern has plagued countless people. Mostly, I think, they are good-hearted folk who genuinely want to please God, and they long to obey. But somehow, they cannot rest until they have stumbled upon the one perfect plan for their lives. “If only He would tell me,” they think, “then I would rush to obey and to do.”

Many sermons have been preached on this topic. Any number of conference speakers and evangelists have sought to explain a seemingly unfathomable mystery, “How do I find God’s will for my life?” And folks from everywhere will pay to hear it.

I was thinking on it as I drove into work today. In the silence, my musing began with a tiny phrase that came to mind as I was thinking of my own future and calling, and it came in three, small words, “Walking with God.”

As the mother of three adult sons (and a fourth one close behind that pack), I have watched my children wrestle with this very thing. It has caused no small amount of confusion, anxiety, and disturbance. I understand it, for I have suffered my own share of turmoil in trying to discern the wishes of the Almighty, and for years, it caused me a great deal of angst.

Not anymore.

I am no longer scared of missing God’s plan for my life. I’m not.

I no longer fear displeasing Him, disqualifying myself, or making the wrong choices in these matters. Shocking? Perhaps, but more peaceful and restful than you can imagine or I can describe. Here’s why.

The secret, I have found, is in the three words that whispered through my mind. I know that I know that I know that I am walking with God. Just as surely as my toddlers walked with me through the aisles of the grocery store, or trotted ‘longside, tugging my hand as we walked into church. As much as they followed me every-single-where I went, just like that, God and I are walking together.

When those hooligans took a detour and hid in clothes racks, I always found them. When they wandered off course, I called them back. When one of them ran headlong into the “far country” of addiction, still his father and I waited. At the end of the proverbial lane, ever and always, we cast our eyes up the darkened road, watching for him to return.

Our love and presence in their lives was (and is) so absolute and steadfast, our love so resolute, they don’t have to worry. They know our guiding hands and loving eyes will always be there to help. We will not let them wander astray without many warnings, invitations, and guard rails. And should they run headlong, we still trust the God of us all. And that would be the God Who’s the parent of me.

The God with whom I am walking.

As long as I am walking with Him, He will naturally, in the course of my ordinary life, guide my steps into the places He’d like me to go. It’s that simple. Furthermore, when I’m afflicted with the “don’t want to’s,” He helps me with those as well. See below.

Because we have a relationship with each other, it means that we’re together all the time. Sometimes we talk using words. Sometimes a look, a glance, or the awareness of His presence beside me is enough. And again, I find that more and more, our desires are coming together, and so the doing of what’s right is so easy.

The old way of striving and wrestling to somehow wrench a specific answer from the Almighty is exhausting. It often springs more from fear than from a place of loving trust. I don’t want my sons to live that way, and I don’t want that for you.

If I hang a left instead of a right, or veer right instead of left along the way, God is able and willing to work it out for good. Just as we are for our four sons. There is just no fear on this path.

Now, as I often tell the boys and others, my do-ing springs from my be-ing, and my be-ing, all of it, is in Him. I do not have to fear missing out. What peace!

Warmly offered,

The Curly-Headed Mother

P.S. – Philippians 2:13 has restored simplicity and ease to every area of my life. “It is God who works in you, both to will (there’s the want-to) AND to do according to His good purposes and plans.” I trust God to give me and those I love the right desires. Then the doing will naturally follow. It’s amazing.