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Imagine with me, for a moment, that someone very close to you; spouse, sister, best friend, someone who knows you, almost better than you know yourself, told you that they were taking you on a trip.  You will be gone two weeks, but they are not going to tell you where you are going.  Now if you are like me, there is already a problem, because I would really want to know where we were going!  But again, we are just imagining, so they give you a few details, so that you can prepare:

• It’s going to be warm about 70-75 degrees, but it may get cool at night, and you may have to be prepared for rain.
• We will be doing a lot of walking, so bring comfortable shoes.
• We may have dinner in a fancy restaurant, so bring something nice to wear.
• We may work on our business plan for a few days, so bring your computer…  

And that’s all, no more details, you must just get ready for the trip!  But the details are so vague… a lot of walking, where?  Fancy restaurant, how fancy?  So, are you excited or just a tad apprehensive or maybe a little bit of both?

Isn’t the Lord the same way and He knows us better than you know ourselves? 

So, how are we preparing for where the Lord is taking us? Or are we going to just go with the flow until we get where we are going?  For some reason, I don’t think that that will work.  We must get ready, although we have no idea where we are going, and He will give us just enough information to prepare for the journey.

For a moment, I’d like you to consider that before God decided where we were going or what He needed us to do [our purpose], we were created for His Glory.  Sometimes, I think that we need to be reminded.   

Bring all who claim me as their God,
    for I have made them for my glory.
    It was I who created them.’”

Isaiah 43:7

So, He doesn’t have to tell us where we are going, we just have to get ready and put things in suitable order for the journey.  We must understand that the Lord wants to do a new thing in our lives, something that we have never seen or even imagined before.  Thus, we have no frame of reference of what our destination may be. The Lord says…

¹⁹ For I am about to do something new.
    See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?
I will make a pathway through the wilderness.
    I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.

isaiah 43:19

At times, we may think that if we just knew where we are going, we’d know what to wear and we could plan for what we’d do when we got there.  But do we really what to know?  Remember Daniel… He saw a vision of the future and as he was trying to understand, God told Gabriel to tell him what the vision meant.  I can only surmise that after fainting three times, he would have rather not known!  Personally, at this point, I am ok with the small details that the Lord is willing to give me. 

We cannot afford to get too preoccupied with where God is taking us, however, we must strongly consider our decisions along the way, with the information that we have. Recently, I read that even “a good decision does not mean a path without obstacles”.  Many times, God will take us through the process of elimination, so the first thing God shows us, isn’t His final answer.  Then we get frustrated when the first thing doesn’t work.  This doesn’t mean that it wasn’t from God, nor was it a bad decision, it’s just a part of getting prepared for the journey.  God’s way is not just right, it’s the very best route and He makes Himself responsible for us arriving safely to our destination. 

Although, at times, we wish that we had even as much detail as was given to us regarding our two-week trip with a friend to a place that we’ve never been before, but to prepare for His journey…

We really must be listening intently to what the Holy Spirit is saying ALL along the way…