What To Do When You Stand at a Crossroads
Invite Champions Weekly 2024-02-08
The most important job of the leader is to set the direction, right? But what if you’re not certain which direction to go?
It’s a common problem, if you’re new, growing or declining.
My perspective comes out of 25 years of experience in ministry entrepreneurship. If you’re adding value to people’s lives, and you’re growing as a result, you will inexorably come to a crossroads, where it becomes time to pick a direction.
As you stand there, how do you figure out what to do next? I wrote a little something about this a few weeks ago, but let’s look closer.
In Exodus, my current morning Bible study, a crossroads moment happens in the wilderness. There, something beautiful happens between Moses and God.
Moses at the Crossroads
The people have just made the golden calf.
God is not happy, to say the least.
In fact, God no longer wants to accompany them on their journey. God points Moses in the right direction but shockingly says, I’m not going with you any longer.
“Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way.”
Exodus 33:3
Make no mistake—this is an existential crisis. Without God, the people are in a bad way. Think plagues, manna, and the Red Sea. The only reason they’ve gotten this far is because of God. And now they’ve got to continue alone?
Moses responds carefully, not abruptly. (Can you imagine?!)
First, he goes to his regular spot with God, the Tent of Meeting. There, he says something curious and seemingly unrelated: Teach me your ways.
Instead of addressing the question head on, Moses says, help me understand.
God responds positively: Okay, I will.
This seems to be the grounding Moses needs.
Then, Moses pleads with God to not abandon the people. He says,
“If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here. How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?”
Exodus 33:15-16
God responds positively again: Okay, I will do what you ask.
What We Can Learn at the Crossroads
What can we learn from this moment about to do at the crossroads?
First, It’s a Question of Prayer.
I’ll call the Tent of Meeting conversation Moses’ “prayer,” although it’s not labeled as such. Prayer is indeed what is happening.
Moses is praying to God, and God is answering. And not only answering, but doing so positively—saying two notable things:
Yes, I will do the very thing you have asked.
I am saying yes because I “know you by name.”
And the Lord said to Moses, “I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name.”
— Exodus 33:17
While many of us pray to solve our immediate problems, the next level prayer is what you might call a change of focus: “Your will be done.”
Second, It’s Learning to Shift What We Want.
Often when we pray we want to solve a problem. But what if we pray the simple prayer Jesus taught us, instead? “Your will be done.”
That kind of prayer shifts our focus from what we want to what God wants through us.
Good prayer is a conversation, not a solution to conjure up like a wish from a genie in a bottle. Biblical spirituality opens us up to possibilities we can’t control or command. Life in the Holy Spirit isn’t about solving problems as you see things. It’s about listening and responding to what God is up to, which is better than our ideas anyway.
Instead of praying, God fix my problem, try praying, God take me to where you want, even if it’s something completely different. Take this whole operation—this ministry, this organization, this mission, my family, my life—where you want it to go.
When we pray a prayer like this, we surrender our own sense of control and allow God to become the authority of our lives.
Since authorities author, God starts writing the next chapter. And—surprise!—the next chapter may not be what you had in mind. You may find yourself going in a new direction. The beauty of it, though, is that
It’s better, and
Your problem gets solved anyway.
The bigger picture of what’s happening is that, as God writes the next chapter, God is teaching us about his good, pleasing and perfect will. God is showing us what matters to God, assuming we are willing to learn.
With this perspective on prayer established, let’s return to the crossroads, and the conversation between Moses and God. The amazing thing about God’s answer is that God agrees with Moses! I can’t imagine this happens too often to God.
Sidebar: God hears perhaps billions of prayers every day. Scripture teaches us that somehow the God who is in control of time is able to listen and hear and respond to each one. I’ll assume many of them are prayers of desperation—Lord, fix this now! And the Lord, in his steadfast love and goodness, is every ready and able to do so, if we will only allow him to take command. How many of those billions of prayers simply seek to understand God’s ways?
Last, consider that Moses’ prayer is so aligned with God’s will that God simply says, Okay.
How does this even happen? The answer to the reason Moses’ prayer aligns perfectly is in part two of Exodus 33:17: “I know you by name.”
God doesn’t have to start at step one, establishing a relationship, teaching us the way of the Lord. Through their journey together, Moses had become closely aligned to God.
Although Moses asked to God to teach him, the truth is that Moses had already been learning God’s ways. When he prayed, then, his prayers aligned with God’s desires. Moses and God had become one.
Thus, prayer is:
Not speaking into the void, but discovery of a relationship rooted in faith
A two-way conversation with God about life
A relationship of ever increasing intimacy, in which God “knows us by name”
A journey in which we learn to align our desires to God’s desires
Takeaway: If you are struggling today to discern the next chapter in your life and ministry or work, try this:
Pray for your unbelief and ask God for more faith. Jesus describes it simply as, “Seek first the presence of God”
Trust that God is for you, desires something at least as good and probably better than you can imagine, and has the power to get it done
Listen for what God may be saying through such vehicles as Scripture, journaling, and other believers in your life
Be ready for something great to appear, which may take you in a direction you had not expected
Championing Invite
As we near our four year anniversary, Invite Resources is entering a season of prayer and discernment about what comes next. We’ve established a ministry presence. We are honored to work with amazing partners. We are becoming a sustainable operation. So what’s next? It’s an important question, and one we are praying about and considering daily.
If you would, join with me in prayer about the future direction of Invite and its role in the larger Christian publishing landscape. Ask God to show us what God wants, and ask God to give us ears to hear and a heart to want what God wants.