FINDING YOUR SPOT

Fall river, Brannockstown, Kildare, Ireland
A beautiful spot!

 

O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me
Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.
Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.
Psalm 139:1-5

 

 

There is an old joke in our family about "finding your spot".    It involves an exasperated dad preparing for a four hour road trip on a hot summer day with his three young sons.  The boys needed some strong encouragement to "find their spot" in the backseat of the car.  As in most stressful situations, it was not funny at the time but we often chuckle about it now that those sons are grown and their dad has mellowed with age.  The dad in the story is one of my brothers and he was attempting to bring some order to the chaos.  God has an order to everything and I'm sure it grieves Him when we rebel in wanting to be in a place of our making without regard to Him and His will.  God has a place, or spot, for all of His children.  We must realize that our "spot" is not necessarily a physical location, however, it is a spiritual one.  God divinely sets a place for each one of His children and He expects us to stay in that place until He tells us to move.  No two spiritual spots are the same but they all point in the same direction - toward our Lord and Savior.   

Reading Psalm 139:1-5 assures me that God has perfect knowledge of me.  He knows where I've been, where I am now, and where I'll be in the future.  I can trust  that in whatever spot the Lord places me it will be for my good and His will.  The Psalmist David declared in verse 6 that those thoughts simply "too wonderful for me." 

We can only be pleasing to the Lord if we do

His will in His way;

which begs the question:

HOW DO WE FIND OUR "SPOT" IN THE LORD'S WILL?

 

I can think of three steps that will help point us in the right direction:

 

The first step must be to PRAY.  
 It seems so simple, but to ignore praying to God about
finding His will in our lives is like driving a car
without a steering wheel - there's no telling where you might end up. 
Navigating our lives on our own only gets us nowhere fast!

 

Once we've prayed, the next step is to FIND OUT WHAT GOD'S WORD SAYS.
  An idea in our mind may not agree with what the Bible instructs. 
 God's Word is inspired and designed for His children to read and study. 
 I like the look of a worn Bible because it tells me that the owner frequently consults its pages.  If we want to know where
our "spot" in the Lord's will is we must pay
 attention to His instructions.

 

Having prayed and studied His Word, the final step is to OBEY. 
 This requires action by faith on our part, and this is where so many Christians get stuck (myself especially).  We know what God has impressed on our hearts to do and we know we cannot please Him without doing His will but we lack the courage to follow through.  Our Sunday School lesson for this week is about David and Goliath.  God led David to the place where he met Goliath but we often miss the fact that David actually RAN toward the giant!  David was in such a hurry to meet the challenge he had to load his slingshot on the way! (I Samuel 17:48-50).  The secret to David's ability is the fact that he acknowledged that the battle was not his but the Lord's.  God blessed David with the courage, confidence and weapons he needed to defeat the giant and He will do the same for me when I simply obey.

 



The Lord's hand is upon us when we agree with Him about where and how we are to serve.  He calls us first to salvation and then to serve Him in a local, scriptural church.  We bring honor and glory to the Lord when our service is through one of His churches.  The Lord has blessed us with abilities and talents that are uniquely designed for us to be used in the "spot" He has called us to.  May the Lord bless you as you seek to do His will in your "spot".

Blessings, Pamelyn