Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

He went out, not knowing where he was going.

• Hebrews 11:8

Have you ever “gone out” in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, “What do you expect to do?” You don’t know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing. Continually examine your attitude toward God to see if you are willing to “go out” in every area of your life, trusting in God entirely. It is this attitude that keeps you in constant wonder, because you don’t know what God is going to do next. Each morning as you wake, there is a new opportunity to “go out,” building your confidence in God. “…do not worry about your life…nor about the body…” (Luke 12:22). In other words, don’t worry about the things that concerned you before you did “go out.”

Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do— He reveals to you who He is. Do you believe in a miracle-working God, and will you “go out” in complete surrender to Him until you are not surprised one iota by anything He does?

• Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Did I have any idea what I was going to write about when I sat in front of the computer today?  Nope.  Not a clue.  I knew that something would inspire me.  Julie of Cookie Crumbs to Live By wrote recently that she writes what she feels God has inspired her to write.  I feel the same way.  We are not writing the next Gospel, just what the Holy Spirit guides us to write.  It simply feels like the right thing to do that day.  Usually the feeling stems from prayer, Bible reading, and devotions for me.  Regardless of the source of the inspiration, I am sure that many other Christian bloggers may feel the same way.

But many other bloggers may have a direction.  At times, I have a direction.  Sometimes, I write a series of posts on a single topic.  For a few days, or one glorious day of heavy keyboard banging, I know what is ‘next’.  Most of the time, I do not have a clue.  I take a lot of notes as I read, but I can come back to those notes a month later and wonder why I had written notes about this quote, that book, or the experience that I had driving home from wherever it was I had been.  If I wondered why I wrote the notes, odds are that the Holy Spirit is now guiding me in a different direction.

At times, I feel like a tumbleweed.  I have had encounters with tumbleweed.  They go where the wind blows.  Sometimes they pile up and block traffic.  They have thorns, at least some do.  If you live in tumbleweed country, you carry heavy gloves so that you can clear a lane, if needed.  In remembering John 3:8, the Spirit is like the wind.  We do not know where it comes from or where it is blowing us.  But being born of the Spirit, we willingly go as God leads us.

We may not know or understand where we are going, but God does.  He has a plan for us.

So, why not ask God?  Chambers does not like that idea.  Chambers says in the second paragraph of the quote above that we must simply go where God leads and God will do amazing things.

In mid-November, I was challenged to write something using idioms.  Within a few hours, I had created Deviled Yeggs and his first mystery.  Schooled creative writers can probably critique the short story and rip it apart, but I had no intention of writing a critically acclaimed prize-winning story.  I wrote down a list of idioms and then started connecting the dots.  It wasn’t until the cock and the bull were telling a ‘cock and bull story’ that I had any idea who had paid the truck driver to “ice Charlie the Tuna.”  Okay, the creative writing experts could probably write about all my plot gaps, but I was writing a parody and having fun.

Yet, when I get serious and I write from the heart, I follow the Holy Spirit’s lead.  I might have a secret agenda, but that agenda may never appear.  I get to a reasonable conclusion and a voice says, “Your done.”  I read over what is there and think that I would screw it up if I added anything more.  In a way, God tells me to discard my agenda, for He has other plans.

A journey of faith is kind of like that.  You have no idea what direction you are going, but something propels you in the direction that God is pointing.  And thinking of pointing, you may not even have a clue what the ‘point’ of the journey is.  You simply take that next step in faith, knowing that God will not lead you astray.

Have you ever gone out, not knowing where you were going?  If God was leading you, you were going in the right direction.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.