Knowing it all at Once

Perhaps one of the biggest hindrances to being led by the Holy Spirit, is that we want to know each step, including the eventual outcome, all at once. I have noticed that when I’ve made poor decisions in the past, I have been more insistent on knowing everything all at once: I want to know where I’m going to go, what I’m going to do and with whom. There is a tendency to want to know where our actions today will take us to in five years time. Every decision that we have made in the past, both little and big, have led us to where we are today. So it seems important to make the right decisions in each moment. When we understand that behind each action we take, there is a thought or pattern of thought, we realise the importance of right thinking. James Allen said, “You are today where your thoughts have brought you. You will be tomorrow where your thoughts will take you.”

So what fear does is that it gives us an inclination towards wanting to know everything all at once. By that I mean we want to be able to gaze into the future and understand where a proposed decision will take us. The desire to want to know the future outcome of a decision will naturally lead to bouts of worry as we try to figure things out logically. But this is frustrating and leads to a sense of emptiness and hopelessness. Worry is an attempt to supplant the Holy Spirit, whose role it is to lead us in life. In fact, it is God who lives His life through us by His Spirit.

A lot of the time I find that God gives us just what we need in order to make the next step; in most cases, that is all that we need. I find that the insistence on knowing the next five steps and a detailed description of exactly what is going to happen and when, is simply an expression of fear. The more we trust in God and His ability to guide us and empower us, should give us the confidence to be led step-by-step by Him. We should rest our minds in the fact that if God requires for us to know more than the next step, He will let us know. There is no need for all the drama that many Christians go through as they seek to know the will of God for their lives and seek to understand their destiny. Just live your life one moment at a time – that is where God is and that is where peace is.