Starting at the Right PLace

You won't be surprised that I don't know the answer to your question. But I'm not surprised at what has happened to you. It seems that God often leads us in ways that seem to lead into a series of dead ends and cul-de-sacs until we finally get where he wants us to be. And even then, we don't stay there forever.

The great question that I like to think about in times like this is, Is God good and can I trust him? That helps me to frame it properly because when hard times come, we have two choices. We can start with our troubles and try to reason back to God or we can start with God and try to reason back to our troubles. If we start with our troubles, our perspective will be off and we generally don't make it back to God. We fall off the ladder and end up in the sea of despair. Better to go back to what we know to be true, back to the fundamental, unseen reality of who God is. What do you know about God? What can you believe about him? Is he who he said he was? Is he a God who has proven himself trustworthy? Remember that he is a trans-generational God who works out his purposes over years, decades, generations and centuries. You and I are little bit players in his enormous drama of redemption. The exciting thing is to know that we've got a part, even a small part, and our part may not seem like much. But if God is good and if he can be trusted, then we know that our part fits into the bigger picture somehow.

So I can't answer your questions about why the consulting job fizzled any better than you can. But I encourage you not to start with those questions because you cant answer them either. Start with God. Stay with God. Focus on God. Think about God. Meditate on him. Cast yourself on his promises. Review what you know to be true about the Lord. And then reason from there back to the great questions of life.

Lord, I ask you to help Debbie to focus on you. Clear her mind of questions that she can't answer. Lift up her eyes to see you, the everlasting God. Give her new faith to trust in you. I pray that the clouds of uncertainty will soon part and that she will know the way you want her to go. In Jesus' name, Amen.

God bless you.