Direction: A Simple Revelation 

April 14^th 2024 (Week 65)
 
John 14: 1-13
 
I don’t know about you but I’ve always had a pretty good sense of direction, unlike my wife who can easily get lost in her hometown! So, I’ve rarely if ever been really lost on a journey. I have driven to both ends of Great Britain and down to the southernmost tip of Spain and can’t recall (though my wife probably will!) any occasion when I’ve been well and truly lost.
 
I do remember, however, driving around the Arc de Triumph in Paris at about midnight and being unable to get off the roundabout circling the huge monument due to six or eight lanes of considerable traffic doing its best to make me a resident Parisian. I can’t think how many times I drove around that roundabout trying to exit the merry-go-round.
 
Unfortunately, at times life can be a bit like that. Before becoming a Christian I spent many years going around in circles, never really sure of what I was doing or where I was heading. The only identifiable goal I had was to accumulate wealth. I never achieved it and after years of trying I was beginning to feel like a dog chasing its tail, round and round and round. It’s an all too familiar picture that we see so often in people’s aimless lives today.
 
Despite having one of those life-changing conversions that it was impossible to ignore (no, I didn’t see flashing lights or anything else like that, I just heard God very clearly saying that He was now in charge of the life which I’d so spectacularly messed up) I still suffered - and occasionally still do – the anxiety of not quite knowing what it was that God wanted me to do with my life. Bearing in mind that He has given me precisely what I have always wanted – to be a writer – I’ve still agonised over the sort of work I should be doing and where I’m going with it all. My prayer life for quite some time seemed to focus on my life and work and where God was taking me with it. What did He want me to do?
 
Now I know I’m not alone in this. Seeking God’s will and direction is, after all, a major Christian pastime. Ignoring it when offered is probably another. I confess I’m guilty of that too. After all, why would God want me to proclaim his word?
 
I’m sure God was reaching the point of total despair with me when again I asked, one morning, Lord, where are you taking me with all this? I didn’t quite hear an audible sigh, but I certainly sensed him saying, “I’m taking you to heaven, and nothing else matters”.
 
And if that doesn’t liberate I can’t imagine what will.
 
Prayer: Father, thank you that you have already prepared a place in heaven for us. Help us to remember that each day.