Sometimes the simplest questions are the most troubling! God has a way of cutting through the rhetoric, meaningless discussions, and excuses and getting to the heart of the matter. While those we work with may feel awkward about addressing certain issues with us, God feels no such constraint! Our challenge is slowing down long enough so God can have that brief, pointed conversation with us. We can so immerse ourselves in activity and labor that we grow deaf to God’s voice as He seeks to address the fundamental issues of our life.
Our hearts have imaginative ways of justifying whatever we are doing. We can justify the oddest behavior! We can rationalize a retreat and make it appear like an advance. We can spin a defeat until it sounds like a victory. We can present our selfishness, or pride, or greed so it appears to be humble generosity! But God plays no such games. He always speaks truth, even though seasoned with grace.
The reality is that we often did not set out intending to travel to our present destination. We did not necessarily wake up one morning intending to fall away from the Lord or to give ground to our enemies or to sacrifice our godliness. But we ended up doing so nonetheless. Often when this occurs, God does not waste time berating us or heaping coals of guilt upon our heads. Rather He is the master of the brief, direct, and utterly devastating question that cannot be ignored or cast aside.
So what are you doing where you presently are? Where are you spiritually? Where are you in your relationship with your spouse and children or parents? Where are you in your job? In your service in your church? More importantly than how you arrived there, the pressing question is: are you presently where God wants you to be?