Give Me Clarity
by Ben Hodges

I spend a lot of time asking my Father for clarity. Maybe its because this whole job is new to me. I have no doubt that He is OK with me asking for clarity about staffing issues, money, responding to problems (or opportunities for the optimists out there) - you get the point.

But, in all my searching to clear the air and see with eagle-eyed precision, I believe I have overlooked another important part of leading - trusting Dad where my vision is not so clear.

Maybe He does not always want to give me clarity. Maybe, at least for a while, he wants me to trust him even when I do not see where he is leading. Maybe sometimes, my lack of clarity is not sin, wrong priorities, busy-ness, lack of prayer. Maybe it is simply that occassionally clarity can be at odds with trust.

Mind you, these are not mutually exclusive goals. Often trust over time leads to clarity, and clarity can built trust. For me, I want to know now, not know sometime later, maybe. Trusting Him in the middle of my junk does not always mean that I will see it clearly later once I have learned the lesson or matured to the next level. Sometimes trust simply results in a greater capacity to trust. Sometimes, my trusting Him does nothing more than demonstrate that I believe His plans for me are good and that he is powerful enough to get me there.

Lately, I have been praying for Him to help me trust. I don’t like it. I would rather have clarity. But, I sense he is pleased with my request …

[Reprinted from 4cc, edited for ambiguity]

Posted to webeldotnet on Wednesday, July 19th, 2006 at 7:00 pm EST in Faith (comment feed). If you refer to this post on your blog, please trackback. Thanks!