A dear friend asked me the other day, "how do you know if your plans line up with God's plans?"
My first thought was, I'm much better at asking that question than I am answering it. Because trust me, I have memorized that question. We live in a day when it's very difficult to be lost, to NOT know if we're going in the right direction. We plug an address in. A voice guides us step by step to the destination. If we make a wrong turn on the way, that voice is quick to interrupt us. The voice even goes the extra mile of giving us brand new directions to our spot. The voice refuses to let us feel a hint of uncertainty. That's the world we live in. We live in a world that promotes certainty - it sells it. You want a quick path to fame and fortune? Build answers to the questions that plague the masses. Questions make people uneasy. Answers bring them happiness. At least temporarily.... But you know who doesn't work that way? Do you know who isn't nearly as interested as the rest of the world in making sure we have all the answers? Do you know who really doesn't care how long we sit and stew over the questions we have in life? God. That's who.. Because with God, answers are the opposite of faith. And God wants a relaitonship with us built on faith. That's not completely radical. Think about the most important relationships you have in your life. They aren't important to you because you are 100% certain these people know where they are going in life, or that they can help you be sure you're going the right way - although that's helpful. No, they are important because you're sure these are the right people to go with no matter where you're going. These are people you want around when life gets full of questions, because life DOES get full of questions. And you want them not because they have answers, but because they are who you want with you in the event there ARE no answers. God is far more interested in us knowing that no matter where we're going, he wants to go with us. And that if we take him with us, there is no guarantee he's going to interrupt us if we make a wrong turn, but he'll always guarantee we'll end up in a right place. Last week, I had a young lady email me. She believed she had an alcohol problem. When we started talking, I asked her how she got my email. She said a friend of hers had talked to me a few years ago. That friend didn't have an alcohol problem, but she remembered I talked to her about addictions. She remembered I was easy to talk to. So she directed her friend - a friend struggling with a problem - to me. So there I was, talking to this young lady. There I was, a guy who abused alcohol for way too many years, talking to a young lady early in her own patterns of abuse. When I get done with calls like that, I always reflect on something. When I was abusing alcohol, I don't believe for a minute God was sitting back saying, "well this is the right direction." Quite the opposite, I think God sat itching, fingers twitching, ready to send me the 're-route' directions. But that's not who or what God is about. God is about I am with you. God is about I am with you when you're life is full of questions. I am with you when you feel like your life is full of answers. I am with you in right and in wrong and in everything in between. Because the reality is, THAT is the final destination: God. And the path there is always: I am with you. When I got off the phone with that young lady last week, I felt God. I felt I am with you. In that moment, no matter how screwy the path was that got me there, and no matter how screwy the path would be when I got on from there, it felt like I was on the right path. Because I did indeed feel and know, God is with me.
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Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
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