What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do

This is a follow up post to last week’s thoughts, What to Say When You Don’t Know What to SayAs a pastor, I talk to a lot of people who tell me they just don’t know what to do. They want to obey God. They want to follow His will. They want to do the right thing. But, they just don’t know what that is.

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I’ve been there before. Maybe you have too. You know your heart is in the right place. You want to follow the will of God. But you just don’t know what His will is in this particular situation. I can remember when I was 18 years old praying about where to go to college. Even though I knew I was going to be a pastor I struggled about where to go to school. In the end, God made His will clear to me. But there was that strange time that every Christian experiences when it seems like God is silent.

If you’ve ever been there, or if you’re there right now, I just want to share one simple thought with you. It’s not life-changing. It’s not earth-shattering. It’s not revolutionary, crazy, or radical. It’s just simple. But this one thought has helped me many times as I have tried to faithfully follow Lord.

What should you do when you don’t know what to do? Here’s what I’ve learned.

When you don’t know what to do, do the last thing God told you to do
when you know He spoke to you. 

Like I said, it sounds really simple. But you will be amazed how liberating this idea is. I think sometimes we struggle with “discovering God’s will” or “finding the next step” when God simply says, “I’ve already shown you what I want. Keep doing that until I give you further instructions.”

Others have said it like this: obey the light that you have right now until God gives you more light down the road. Don’t make the mistake of moving ahead of God. Wait on Him. Listen to Him. Rest in Him. And keep doing the last thing He told you to do until He tells you something else.