The following is an article by Jason Webb – a Milwaukee-based pastor and public speaker, offering advice to those who experience uncertainty in their lives due to a global pandemic and economic recession.
What do you do when life feels uncertain?
What do you do when your once secure job is no longer secure? What do you do when a global pandemic threatens everything you were so sure of? What do you do when your financial security is at risk or completely gone?
What do you do when your marriage that was once a fairytale is now a nightmare? What do you do when the child you have loved turns her back on you? What do you do when you can’t see the future? What do you do when the confidence you once had now has vanished?
What do you do when you are walking through hell?
The answer is so simple but so hard: keep walking.
Winston Churchill once said, “When you are walking through hell, keep walking.”
That sounds nice, but it is so hard. It is hard to keep walking when you don’t know which way to go. It is hard to keep walking when you seemingly keep tripping over yourself. It is hard to keep walking when circumstances beyond your control knock you off your feet.
I have felt this tension. I remember sitting in my therapist’s office feeling paralyzed by life. I was in the middle of walking through my own hell and couldn’t figure out a way forward. By nature, I like to have a strategic plan for everything, especially my own life. I like to know where I am headed and the steps it requires to get there. Yet for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see in front of me. I was trying to solve everything and plan my way out of it. He looked at me and said, “Aren’t you exhausted? You are trying to control things that are way, way beyond your control. What God is asking you to trust that he is leading you out of this even though you can’t see it. Your job isn’t to figure out the next 10 steps but your job is today, to take the next step. So what is that good, healthy, and right step you know you can take today?”
That sounds so simple, but it is what God asks of us. He doesn’t ask us to figure out the next 10 steps, that’s his role, he just asks us to take the next step. And then the next step. And then the next step.
He is paving the path, we just have to walk. That’s why Moses said to Joshua, “The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Dt. 31:8)
Think about that reality. God is ahead of us figuring out the next 10 steps, but he is always with us to give us the power to take the next step.
And what my therapists said to me, I say to you. You are not God. Your job isn’t to figure out the next 10 steps. You’ll go crazy doing that. The only job you have is to trust that God is not only with you in your hell, he is ahead of you out of the mud orchestrating a rescue path for you.
And your job today is to surrender to that God.
Keep walking. Take the next step. You don’t know the next 10 steps, God’s got that, but you can take one good, right, and healthy step today.
You may not know where you will end up working, but you can fill out an application today.
You may not know if your relationship with that person will ever get better, but you can send them a text message today.
You may not know where God wants you in the future, but you know he is giving you a chance to serve your family today, your community today, your church today.
You can do that. You can take that step. And then take another one tomorrow. Soon you will find yourself, one step at a time, coming out of hell to the place God had planned for you all along.
About Jason Webb
Jason Webb is a movement leader, public speaker, advocate for racial reconciliation, and an entrepreneur from Milwaukee, WI. His skillset includes networking, fundraising, strategic planning, leadership, merger and acquisition, recruiting, and business expansion. Mr. Webb has mobilized these skills to establish and manage churches and non-profits and their budgets. He recently obtained a new leadership role for Great Lakes Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin.