What Do We Do Now That We Don't Know What to Do?
What do we do now?
Let me give you my answer followed by some rationale and practicality. If you stop reading after the next line or two, you’ll know what to do moving forward.
What do we do now that we don’t know what to do?
We do the next right thing. We take the next right step. We trust our training as human beings and as followers of Jesus Christ. But that is easier said than done.
How is all of this craziness going to work itself out?
I don’t know. No one knows, least of all the sailors aboard the Ship of State and those who write about them in endless drivel. In case you are not following, least of all those in Washington, et al, and those who write about the people in Washington. They don’t know. They are the case-in-point of ships without rudders, blown about by a contrary wind.
Here’s the deal: Asking how all of this craziness is going to work out is not a viable question. In fact, it’s the wrong question to ask. It’s an interesting question, but that doesn’t make it the right question.
If today is your day to drive across town to an appointment, it might be interesting to contemplate how you get to Omaha, but it’s an impertinent question. You don’t need to know how to get to Omaha because that’s not the next right thing for you to do. The important question to ask and answer is, how do I get to my appointment across town.
The virus. What about the pandemic?
I don’t know. You don’t know. Dr. Fauci doesn’t know. Congress doesn’t know. Joe Biden promised a proactive plan if elected President. Turns out, his plan is for us to wear masks for the first 100 days of his term. Sure, okay. But we’ve been wearing masks since March.
It’s reasonable to want this virus fixed. But it is not, and it won’t be tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or in time for the Saint Patrick’s Day parade in Chicago. Check back later regarding the Fourth of July.
The rancor. The divide among us. What are we going to do to heal our divisions?
I don’t know. For four years the Democrats castigated Mr. Trump for causing our rifts and angst. Mr. Biden promised to unify us if elected, so we did. While touting his pledge this week, his deputy chief of staff referred to Republicans as “…a bunch of fu**ers.”
Fixing our division is above my pay grade, but my confidence in this approach is not high.
The media. Somebody is lying to us.
I read the news offered in my Google news feed and it says one thing. I switch over to One American News and it says the opposite. Each source quotes unnamed persons and writes in superlative terms. One expert says masks stop the virus. Another expert says masks can’t stop the virus.
Both can’t be right—can they?
My town. The deli I love is gone. I noticed traffic backed up—a long way—along the feeder road of the freeway. I figured it was a wreck… until I saw that the cars were lined up waiting to get into the Food for the Hungry distribution center. The officials shutting down our town’s businesses haven’t missed a day of work, or a pay check, or I might add, their vacation to Cabo.
I want to be part of the solution, but this doesn’t feel right. The locked-down locations are not fairing any better with the outbreak than the open locations.
Here’s a link to my buddy, Jeremy’s Facebook on this matter. Check his thoughts on December 18th.
Is this tyranny? Is this democracy? Is this the new normal? Did the Chinese Communists do this to us? Is this science? Are our politicians doing this to us? Where’s the journalistic excellence that’s supposed to illuminate this for us? What happened to the Kraken monster who was going to unleash havoc on fraud? Are voting machines connected to the internet or not? And who keeps buying all the ammunition?
All interesting questions. All feel pressing—like if we just think harder, work at this a bit longer, hold on until mid-2021—read another news story, drink another Bourbon, then we can see through the fog and determine the conclusion.
Except we can’t. I don’t know why? I don’t know who’s to blame. Could be Soros, or Trump, or Hillary, or Putin, or Xi, or Zuckerberg, or Gates, or Big Tech, or Dominion, or Satan, or God.
I don’t know. I just can’t see.
Driving in the fog is driving in the fog. You’re inclined to stop, but you can’t stop or you’ll get rear-ended by someone forging ahead. You can’t see, so you slow down—not too much—and drive the next hundred feet. It’s all you can do. It’s your only option, the only reasonable thing to do.
This is the idea behind doing the next right thing when the ultimate outcome is shrouded in fog.
Glance out there ahead, just in case, but watch your next step lest you stub your toe and tumble.
What does this short-game, the next right thing, look like? If all of the questions to this point are not the right questions, what is the right question to ask—the question that will enlighten you about what to do next?
The right question is, what’s the next right thing for me to do—for my spiritual life, my relational life, my professional life, and my personal life?
Managing spiritually is the first place to focus as it defines the other arenas of your life:
Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.” Philippians 4:8-9 defines what Colossians is counseling you to do. It says, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”
So, Colossians is telling you to focus—"set your mind.”
Consider what you know about focus? The gurus who study focus tell us that while we might believe we can multi-task, in reality, we can’t. To perform optimally, we must focus on one thing at a time.
For me, when there is considerable noise and significant confusion, I manage my focus deliberately. By this I mean, I consciously switch between one thing vying for my attention and another. This way, I know where my mind is during each moment. It feels laborious, but it is definitive.
If I lose my focus, I stop. Regroup. Refocus. Begin again. Yes, it’s herky-jerky, but it’s effective, and in the long run, efficient given the alternative.
Focus on what—set my mind on what—you ask?
Philippians exhorts you to focus on what is true and provides an amplified list of truth’s aspects: whatever is honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good repute, excellent, and praiseworthy.
Now, here’s my recipe for how to apply—utilize, benefit from—this passage of Scripture:
1. Ask your search engine to “list scriptures on encouragement.” Just in case, let me explain one-step farther: Literally type the request in the previous sentence into the address bar located at the top of your search engine. You don’t even have to capitalize “scripture.” You will receive an entire page of returns from which to choose.
2. Click on the listed option—the blue-colored text—that is most enticing to you and read the Bible verses listed that pop up. Depending on the option you choose, there may be twenty-five verses and there may be one hundred.
3. Note the 5-7 verses that grab you most viscerally—the verses that inspire you most.
4. List these, write them down, copy/paste them. Do something with them so you can readily access them and see them. I often use a 3X5 card so it fits in my breast pocket.
5. Focus on these five verses. Period. No more. Said another way, these five verses are going to be the extent of your Scriptural focus until you’ve mastered them.
What’s next?
The Philippians passage tells you to “dwell” on what is true and to “practice” what is true.
By selecting only 5-7 verses, you’ve got a manageable number. By writing these verses on a card, you’ve engaged another aspect (in addition to reading) of how you learn and retain information. By putting the card in your breast pocket—or writing them in lipstick on your mirror, or on a sticky note stuck to the fridge, or playing them back to yourself from a recording you make in your phone, or converting them into your computer’s wallpaper—you are making them readily accessible so you have a reasonable expectation that you can follow through with the admonition to “dwell” and “practice.”
Return to the segmented answers to the right question: What’s true for you spiritually? What’s true of you relationally? Professionally? Personally?
Let’s say you selected Isaiah 43:2 as one of your five verses to focus upon. The passage quotes God speaking and reads:
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.”
For your purposes, given the circumstances and situations of your world, there are two things in this passage that you need to isolate and focus upon: First, you are going to pass through floods and fires. Hello, calendar-year 2020. Second, you are in God’s care as you do so. You can’t escape Him or be found without Him any more than you can avoid the flood or the fire of 2020 and beyond.
The bad news is that you are going through flooding hell. The good news is that so is God. It’s your choice whether you focus on the storm or upon who’s in the storm.
Returning to the how…
So, you’ve got your 3X5 card with Isaiah 43:2 written on it. Last night, you put your card on the bedside table. The alarm goes off this morning. You reach over and get your card. You look at it and pray, “Father. Whatever today brings, whether water or fire, I’m with you, you’re with me, I believe the truth that you’ve got me. My trust is in you, not me, not whoever. Thank you. Oh, and good morning as well. Amen.”
You are now focused spiritually. You are not even out of bed, but you have determined that today your focus is rooted in your heavenly Father. Nowhere else.
You are also focused relationally. You are with God. God is with you. Your envelopment is actually quite profound. Jesus spoke about this when He said, “I am in my Father, and you [are] in Me, and I [am] in you” (Jn. 14:20).
Envision this relational truth: Jesus says that He is in—enveloped in—God. He says that you are enveloped in Him—which means you are also inside, or within, the envelopment of God since that’s where Jesus is and since you are in Jesus. So, there are two, divine layers surrounding you, both God and Jesus. Then, Jesus continues describing the relational truth about you, saying that He inhabits you.
This is John 14:20 in a picture.
Thus, when you encounter the floods and fires, your focus must view your circumstances as relationally coming through God, through Jesus, to get to you—and when they do, they find you filled with the fulness of Jesus Christ Himself. You are not alone. You both dwell in and are also indwelt.
Is your profession on the rocks? Are you stir crazy working remotely? Your kids not doing well with virtual learning? More bills than money?
Spiritually, relationally, personally, you are filled with Christ, and are in Christ, who is in God, who has declared, “I am with you.”
The practical outcome of your focus is that you engage the flood and the fire.
For example, you sit down with your fifteen-year-old. You tell your child how you focus. You describe your motivation—how you feel/felt in the flood and fire—and how you selected Isaiah 43:2, what you do with the passage. Show your kid the card. A picture’s worth a thousand words. Tell your child how you focus while in the midst of a flood-storm and a fire-storm. Next, help your child either adopt Isaiah 43:2 themselves or select a similar passage for their focus. Finally, you say, “Life is what it is. Confusing. But we get through victoriously by focusing on the next right thing. God is in the storm. Jesus is in God. I’m in Jesus and Jesus is in me. This is how I meet the circumstances of life. This is how you meet the circumstances in life. This is who we are and this is how we compose ourselves.”
This confidence, this composure, this focus—this is something you can manage. All the time. If you lose your focus, you stop, refocus, and regain it.
Now, you are focused and prepared to properly consider the foggy circumstances of your crazy life. Focused, you can adjust, correct course, eliminate, motivate, reconsider, exhort, and weather whatever distress, disillusionment, disappointment that comes your way in the form of flood or fire.
You may be wet and smell like smoke, but you are with God and He’s got you. Floods and fires is how He rolls.
Now, you’re done reading for a moment. Go get a 3X5 card, a sticky note, a tube of lipstick… you’re going to need it because you’re fixing to get focused and take the next right step. Go!
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