Step By Step

When you follow Jesus, or the Path of God, you have to do it step by step. Just one step at a time, not worrying about the next one.

I picture this garden pond with a narrow stone path laid before me in the midst of dark waters. That's the picture in my mind I want to give to you.

These individual stepping stones in the pond represent God's directions and spiritual truths I must embrace in order to move forward on my path. 

There's water between each stepping stone, and I know if I'm not careful, my foot might slip and I could fall in the water. If I look behind me I see the stony path, this winding path in the midst of dark waters I’ve been following up to this point. The path behind me is my life, so far. And then, when I look before me, into the future, there’s only one stepping stone placed before me, and that’s where the path ends. Just like that, in the middle of the dark pond. There's nowhere else for me to go after that. Because it just stops. And what's after that, I don't know, because the view is covered in mist. 

The next stepping stone before me represents my next move, what I’ll do next in my life. And I have to take that step in faith, believing the next step will come after that, even if I don't see it yet.

That's faith.

And that’s how it is when you follow the path Jesus has for you. You can only take one step at a time. You never know about the next one. The next one is none of your business. You don’t even have to know about the next one, because the only way to get to the next one is by stepping on the one in front of you right now. You just have to believe – and ask - that another stone will appear once you’ve taken this step. 

It will.

I know it isn't easy. Following God never is. You must listen to His silent voice, which is difficult. That silent voice inside of you. People call it many things. Some people call it "your guts". Or your "intuition." It's that road you take that makes sense to you, that feels right. That just fits.  

Just don't confuse it with what your mind tells you. Because your mind can be wrong and filled with fear, and all sorts of other garbage. It can tell you to do what everyone else tells you to do, when your gut tells you quite the opposite. It's because your mind is often flooded by the thoughts and feelings that the enemy, the devil, and his demons, feed into it. 

Your mind is their playground.

But that gut feeling, your intuition, that's actually God's silent voice inside of you. Listen to that voice instead. It comes from within you, your spirit. It will lead you on the path to freedom. It will lead you to Wonderland, and beyond. 

So don't worry about the next step, and tomorrow. Don't be your own worst enemy and destroy your own tomorrow the way the devil wants you to. Don't give him the pleasure by filling your mind with worry and doubt. This mindset is the opposite of having faith and trusting God. Really, tomorrow is none of your business. Tomorrow doesn't belong to you, what belongs to you is now. Now time is God time. If you embrace now time, you are buying your ticket on an airplane to the tomorrow you want. The tomorrow God promised and wants you to have.

So it's about not to losing your nerves, but having faith. Which might be hard depending on the circumstances. But you must ask and believe in it, the stepping stone. And then trust. So you can settle down. And before you know it, there it is; the next step.

And you're safely back on it again, the Path of God.

People look for formulas for everything. Especially for life. Christians are no different. There’s safety in formulas. That’s how people are, the brain wants to organize and understand. We want to think that if a certain kind of spiritual step worked before, or worked for one person, it will work again and again, in every situation, for everyone. But that’s not how it works with the Path of God. We can’t put God in box and say this is what He’ll do. Because God always does something new, as the scriptures say. He’ll always do a new thing.