Instructions Not Included

Have you ever attempted to assemble a child’s toy without the instructions?

If you are a Dad, the answer is “Of Course!”   Eventually, even the best dad will succumb to the inevitable instruction manual searching when attempting to assemble a “simple” toy.

We often treat our lives this way.

We do our best to figure it out, but eventually need to seek God for the instruction manual.  

Have you ever stopped to think about why God does not tell us our entire life in advance?

Remember back to when you were in your late teens or early twenties and asked God the serious question of, “What do you want me to do with my life?”

If he had showed you where you would be today, what would you have done?

I would have RUN!!

I would have pulled a Jonah and run to the farthest reaches of the known world to escape my calling (Jonah 1:3)

If God would have told me I would have a teaching and public speaking ministry in Africa, I would have freaked out!   As a teenager, I was petrified of public speaking. Even answering simple questions in class caused me to turn beet red.

No outsider would have picked the short, zit faced, and insecure kid as a future leader of an international ministry!

I had absolutely no ambition or even dreams of living in Africa. To top it off, I never in my wildest day dreaming session, envisioned having a black son! (which I do!)

God doesn’t give us the full picture because He knows we are not ready for it. He shows us His will and His plan as we are ready. This keeps us at the place of trusting Him.  

It also allows God to build into us gifts, talents, and character we never dreamed. If God shared with us all His dreams for our lives, we would find a way to mess it up. Rather God, in his Omniscience, takes us one step at a time, working for our good in all situations.

We know this is true.

He never tells us the season we will meet our spouse, He does not prepare us for the inevitable challenges marriage and children will bring. You simply cannot plan for these events, you respond to them.

God knows. We respond.
God releases when we are ready.
We can trust He has our best interest in mind.

God does possess the ultimate instruction manual and knows what the finished product will look like.

Our job is to look to the master architect each day and say, “What’s Next.”

So let’s do that. Thank him for where He has brought you from and ask, “What’s Next.”