How can you tell what you should do with your life?  What are the right next steps to take?

We all want to know where we are going in life.  We want a solid future, and we'd like to win rather than lose.  (It has been fun to live in Boston lately.  Boston's professional teams have arguably had the most successful decade in sports history, winning 7 championships [3 by the Patriots, 2 by the Red Sox, and 1 each by the Celtics and Bruins]).  However, "might" does not make "right."  The winning team, or nation or even the winning argument doesn't mean that it is right.  Strength and winning is somewhat of an idol in our culture.  But Scripture is clear that the things of the Kingdom of God are not necessarily attained or even perceived this way.  Zechariah recorded the word of the Lord saying, "It's not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,' says the LORD Almighty." (Zechariah 4:6)  The Kingdom of God doesn't come by natural "might" or "fight" - by our strength or striving.  It comes through the work of God.

We are tempted to think that our perception and our reasoning are sound and irrefutable, but they are not.  Our judgments are many times quite shallow.  Often we can only see what is physical, and what we have been trained to see.  We've been trained by our experiences to look at life through particular lenses.   Our personal lenses, however, are at best limited, and usually flawed or distorted.  The apostle Paul chastised the church in Corinth for "only looking on the surface of things."  (2 Corinthians 10:7)  How often we base our direction and hope on what we see with our eyes.  However, our "sight" is not necessarily "right."

At its core, life is spiritual.  God created it - He is the Source, the Inventor, the Rhyme and the Reason for life.  We can only truly understand what is right in His light.  "God is light; in Him is no darkness at all."  (1 John 1:5)  He is the truth and He conveys truth - and that is ultimately what we are after.  We need to understand His truth concerning how life works, and what we should do with our lives.  So, we still our hearts and we learn to pray.  We pour out our desires and needs before Him - and we wait and we listen for His revelation - His light to fill our darkness, His truth and direction to dispel our confusion.

Are you seeking God's light, or are you relying on our cultural, natural and surface resources of might, fight and sight?  Be still, and daily ask for the Holy Spirit to reveal the light (direction and truth) of God.