Join Him Where He's Already Working

There is a phrase I come back to when my tendency to overthink the path gets the better of me. It is not complicated, but like most honest things, the simplicity can be hard to accept:

Discover where He is working around you, point to what He is doing, and join Him there.

We don't need to blaze a trail, or design the strategy, or try to figure out the most efficient route to the destination. Join Him where He is already working. This is harder than it sounds, because we are wired to plan. We want to know the destination before we take the next step. We want to understand the purpose of the current season before we fully commit to it. We want to see enough of the route to feel confident that our presence on it is intentional and purposeful, not accidental and directionless. There is nothing wrong with that desire. But it can become an obstacle to obedience when it causes us to wait for certainty before we follow.

I have spent more time than I care to admit trying to figure out where God's path is taking me instead of simply following His active guidance in the present moment. The harbor pilot analogy has been useful to me here, as it is in many areas of life. The harbor pilot does not know every adjustment he will need to make before he enters the channel. He knows the destination, he knows the current conditions, and he knows the charts. Yet he still has to follow the course one correction at a time, trusting that the information available to him in each successive moment is sufficient for the decision that moment requires.

He does not stand at the entrance to the harbor waiting until he can see the dock before he moves.

This is what faithful followership looks like in motion. The path is narrow, the Bible is clear about that. And we will wobble along it, which is also part of the true picture. Course correction is not a sign that something has gone wrong, it is the signature of a disciple who is actually engaged with the journey, who is paying attention to the guidance available in each moment, and who is humble enough to adjust when the heading needs adjusting. What concerns me is not the wobble. What concerns me is the disciple who has stopped moving altogether because they cannot see far enough ahead, or who has substituted spiritual-sounding planning for simple obedience. Both of those are ways of not following, they just wear different clothing.

The mandate is not to be impressive, or to be visible. It is not to have an opinion about every development in the cultural landscape or to be the person with the most persuasive theological framework. The mandate is to use the gifts and talents He has placed in you to impact His kingdom in the ways He desires. Not the ways you would design if the assignment were yours to determine.

That requires a particular kind of humility that does not come naturally to us. It requires the willingness to be guided to something that does not look, from the outside, like what we thought it should look like. It requires trust in a Guide who sees things we cannot see, who is working in people and situations we are not aware of, and who has a purpose for our specific presence in this specific moment that is larger than our understanding of it.

The truth is our guide, not the opinion of the moment, the cultural consensus, nor the metrics by which success is measured in any given era. The truth which is settled, stable, independent of public approval is what gives the disciple his bearings when everything else in the landscape is shifting. Follow the Guide and join Him where He is working, and point to what He is doing. Trust that obedience, however ordinary it looks, is exactly the contribution He had in mind.

That is enough. It has always been enough.