There are times when we want to know if we are on the right path with God.
We want to know if the things we are doing are the right things. We want to know if our work is really the fruit of our relationship with Him. We want to know if the direction we are taking is part of His will or simply something we have decided for ourselves.
And then sometimes something happens that shakes our understanding completely.
An outcome we expected does not happen. A path we thought was leading somewhere suddenly seems to turn. Something we believed God might be doing in our life no longer looks the way we thought it would.
That can be a shock.
But maybe part of the problem is that we expect ourselves to understand more than we were ever meant to understand.
Works Are Fruit, Not the Foundation
We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ, not by works. Works do not earn our salvation. They come as fruit of our relationship with God and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. As that relationship deepens, one of the things that can become sharper is our conscience.
Conscience is not the same thing as fear, guilt, or anxiety. Those may follow from what conscience tells us, but conscience itself deals with right and wrong, good and evil.
That moral awareness is not exclusive to believers. People who do not believe in God can still recognize many distinctions between right and wrong. But as we grow in relationship with God, our conscience can become more sensitive. We may begin to recognize motives, attitudes, and choices that we once overlooked.
That becomes part of our compass.
But even then, the questions are not always simple.
Not Everything That Is Permissible Is Beneficial
Something may not be wrong, yet still not be beneficial. We may spend time and energy on things that are not necessarily evil but are not really helping us either. Sometimes we do things simply because they come out of our brokenness.
We may be looking for approval. We may be trying to control something. We may be filling an emptiness. We may be acting out of fear, insecurity, pride, loneliness, or some wound we do not fully understand.
And yet God can still use those things for good.
Sometimes we see how He used them. Sometimes we never do.
That is where faith becomes important.
We Were Never Meant to See the Whole Path
We often imagine that if we are walking closely with God, we should be able to understand what He is doing. We begin to form a picture of where our life is going. We see certain events happen and we connect them together. We start to believe that this must be the direction God is taking us.
Then the expected outcome disappears.
The temptation is to think that we must have been wrong about everything.
But being mistaken about what God was doing is not the same thing as being unfaithful to God.
We are limited.
The book of Job gives us a powerful reminder of that. Job wanted answers. He wanted to understand what had happened to him. But when God finally responded, He did not explain every reason behind Job’s suffering. Instead, He reminded Job of how little a human being can see compared with God.
That is true for us too.
We see a small part of the picture. God sees the whole thing.
Sometimes what disappoints us is not the path we were walking. It is the outcome we attached to that path.
We may have been doing something that genuinely drew us closer to God. It may have made us more prayerful, more dependent on Him, more willing to examine ourselves, more sensitive to conscience, and more willing to surrender our own will.
Then something happens that makes us realize the destination may not be what we thought it was.
That does not mean the journey was wasted.
Sometimes the right response is to continue with what was inspiring us and drawing us closer to God. Other times it is time to move to the next step.
The important thing is not to confuse disappointment with spiritual failure.
When Our Expectations Are Shaken
When our expectations are shaken, one of the first things we can do is re-examine our motives and conscience.
Not in a spirit of dread.
Not as though being mistaken means we have failed God.
But with honesty.
What was really motivating me?
Was I acting from love, faith, and a desire to do what was right?
Was some part of me acting from fear, pride, control, or brokenness?
Is what I am doing still good?
Is it still beneficial?
Is it still drawing me closer to God?
When There Is Nothing More We Can Do
Sometimes the answer becomes fairly clear.
Other times it does not.
And that may be one of the hardest lessons of faith.
We like clarity. We like knowing what comes next. We like being able to explain what God is doing.
But sometimes there is no explanation available to us.
Sometimes there is nothing more we can do.
That is when faith becomes rest.
We rest in God because we have reached the limit of our own understanding and our own ability to act.
We trust that He is in control.
And we trust that He is good.
Those two things matter together.
If God were in control but not good, there would be reason to fear Him.
If He were good but not in control, there would be reason to fear our circumstances.
Faith rests in both truths at once.
God is good.
God is in control.
And we do not need to understand the future in order for either of those things to remain true.
That may be one of the most freeing things we can accept.
Plan for the Future. Expect God to Have Other Plans
We should plan for the future. We should think carefully. We should make wise decisions. We should act on what we understand today.
But we should also expect that God will have other plans.
The goal is not to become so spiritually perceptive that we can predict what He is going to do next.
The goal is to stay close enough to Him that when the path changes, we can change with it.
We can listen to conscience.
We can re-examine our motives.
We can continue doing what is right.
We can leave behind what is no longer beneficial.
We can accept that some of our choices came from broken places and still trust God to use them.
And when there is nothing left to understand and nothing left to do, we can rest.
Not because we have figured everything out.
But because we know the One who has.