"Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight." Prov 3:5-6Not too long ago, a friend confided in me that she was stuck in a dead-end job and really wanted to pursue a different career path. "If you weren't doing this, what could you see yourself doing?" I asked her. She said it had always been her dream to work with disabled children, perhaps as a therapist or social worker. But life has a way of carrying us downstream where we latch onto whatever opportunities we can grab ahold of, and somehow despite her dream, she'd ended up behind a desk working on spreadsheets and crunching numbers for an insurance company--as far from working with children, disabled or otherwise, as it was humanly possible to be. Then I asked her a question that truly challenged her: "What are you doing right now to get from here to there?" She gave me the answer that a lot of believers are apt to give: "I'm just waiting for God to open the right door." I've heard that same answer in different versions over the years:"I'm just waiting for God to bring me the right man.""I'm just waiting for God to give me that promotion." "I'm just waiting for God to lead me to the right church.""I'm just waiting for God to give me a sign and tell me what to do." In the last year, I've learned a very powerful truth about waiting on God. It often has less to do with sitting in silent expectation of God and more to do with attending to and ministering to Him, as a server in a restaurant "waits" on the patrons at their table. The Hebrew word for "wait" most often used in the Bible is qavah, which means "to bind together, as in the twisting of strands to make a rope." When the Bible compels us to "wait on the Lord," what were really being urged to do is to attend to him--to make him our primary focus and to make ministering to and abiding in him our singular devotion. When we do that, we become bound together with him like a rope. When strands of a rope are bound together, they move together. There will be seasons where God will ask us to wait with expectant faith for him to move and direct, but more often than we realize, God is waiting expectantly for us to move. Why? Because he's moving, and if we're abiding in him, we shouldlikewise be moving. We see this clearly in the life of Jesus. While there were times when Jesus withdrew in solitude to pray and hear from God, those times were of purposeful but limited duration. The Jesus we see in the gospels is a Jesus constantly on the move--abiding in and carrying the Presence of God upon him, doing what he saw his Heavenly Father doing and going where the Spirit directed him to go. Quite frankly, Jesus knew that his time on this earth was short and there was too much at stake. He didn't sit around waiting for God to tell him what to do. He got up and went where he saw God go. They moved together. Proverbs is very clear that if I abide in God--acknowledge him in all things and put my trust in him--he will transform an obscure and confusing way forward into a straight path of ordered steps designed to get me from here to there. But I have to take the steps. God will not move me. I must do that myself. That means I have to participate with his Spirit. I have to act in accordance with his direction. I have to dream, decide, and do. If I'm wrongly positioned in an ill-fitting job or career, I have to take the steps to prepare, retrain, retool, and move toward the opportunities God has ordained for me. If I want to be married, I have to prepare and position myself in ways that move me toward that future. If I wish to be a singer, I have to sing. If I wish to be a teacher, I have to teach. If I wish to be a pilot, I have to learn to fly. If I wish to travel, I have to buy a ticket. If I wish to be a writer, I have to write. What is within your power to do right now? What steps are you taking that would cause the Lord to say, “Let it be according to your faith”?