Step by step with God

Nice Day for a Ride, by Big Dave Diode (Flickr), Creative Commons license, some rights reserved.

I smiled this morning when I read Jon Acuff’s post, Stop trying to make “perfect decisions. I immediately thought of how I’ve been living the discernment of my perceived call to the diaconate for the last several months: step by step.

I realized early on that there wouldn’t be a golden epiphany, no bright flash from the sky with a booming voice saying, “Michael. Do this!”

Instead, there’s a decision on my part each day to spend time in prayerful conversation with God, to carefully listen and try to feel His response, and then to take a few steps each day in the direction I feel I’m being led. That might continue to lead in the direction I’m now going, or someday it might turn me right or left down some entirely different path.

Now it’s simply, “Step by step with God”.

Jon talks about being brave, and not getting stuck – no “stuck dreams”. He writes, “You can’t wait until you feel brave enough to make a decision. You can’t wait until you have a perfect plan to make a decision. You just have to make one.”

Just one decision, just one step at a time. Sometimes one decision then 3 or 4 steps. The destination might end up different a few months or years down the trail, the trail might get dark and narrow, but you still walk it one step at a time.