Next Right Steps: May It Be So

Exodus 33:12-13

Moses said to the Lord, “See, you have said to me, ‘Bring up this people’; but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now if I have found favor in your sight, show me your ways, so that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.”

God only gives Moses half of the information in this pericope. God gives a command, “Bring up this people,” but God withholds the comfort of knowing whom God will send with Moses.

I can relate to Moses’ frustration. My prayer life often feels dominated by similar complaints. Hearing God’s call is not usually the problem. I can feel God pulling me to go and serve. I am all-too-often aware of God nudging me to speak up, to step up, to share my resources. But, like Moses, I fear God’s silence concerning whom will go with me, stand with me, act alongside me.

There is such fragile beauty in taking the next right step. And so, when I feel God offering commands without the comfort of a companion, I offer my frantic, pleading mantra: “Help me take the next right step. And help me not fall off a cliff.”

I am amazed by the spiritual companions I have found as I’ve followed this mantra. When I was too afraid to write a letter to the editor, a colleague emailed me as I was working on a draft. When I was fearful of going to a rally, friends asked for a ride on Facebook.

More importantly, I have found God’s companionship in the step-taking, giving me the wisdom, courage, and words when I needed them most. I think that’s what Moses found, too.

And so, I continue to pray angry prayers like Moses does above. And I’ve learned to pray for the next right step, as well. Thankfully, God listens to both.

 

Here’s a prayer for today: Holy One, remember that we are your people. Help us find the next right steps, together. Amen.