A man plans his course

I was reminded today that a man plans his course but the Lord determines his steps. I think it's Proverbs 16:9. I was wondering how God was going to bless this meeting with Mat Jolly today. It seems that we are both interested in the same thing: mentoring young men and discipling them in Christ. I hope this works out.  But I must plan my course and let the Lord determine what happens next.  It looks like there's an opening for a woman to step in and help young women. I hope that works out for Beth.

Bob Goff Love Does devotional

Jesus Plus Nothing

When I don’t know the answer to where I am or what God wants me to be doing, which is often, I try to get a bearing on at least a couple of fixed points that I can trust. One is Jesus. I know it sounds like a canned Sunday school answer, and I tend not to like those, but it’s true. I take a bearing off what I know about Jesus. But it’s a Jesus who isn’t encumbered by religion, denomination, and cultural overlays. I look at what He had to say about where I am and then I draw a line from Jesus to me.

The other fixed point I use is a group of people I feel God has dropped into my life, kind of like a cabinet. These people have their particular areas of wisdom and experience, and I use them to bounce ideas off of and get their input. In turn, I’m on the cabinets of many of my friends and family members too. The people on my cabinet help me do some dead reckoning in my life because I take a bearing on their counsel as another fixed point in my life and draw a line from them to me.

From these points, dead reckoning is actually pretty easy. Where all of these lines cross is where God probably wants me to be. I think that navigating a relationship with a living God can be just that easy, and the math is easy too. It’s Jesus plus nothing.

I used to think following God required complicated formulas. I thought I needed a big stack of books, so I could figure out exactly where I was all the time. I thought if I constantly measured the distance between me and God, I’d get closer to Him.

What I realized, though, is that all I really needed to know when it came down to it was the direction I was pointing and that I was somewhere inside the large circle of God’s love and forgiveness.