The Peculiar Flow

There are seasons when God will give you an instruction that works so well, you’re tempted to turn the instruction into a system.

And systems are good.

Until the system becomes more important than staying close enough to hear when God changes the step.

For the last season, one of my instructions was to create ahead. Batch the content. Schedule 30 days at a time. Get it done so I could free my mind and focus on everything else that needed my attention.

It worked.

More importantly, it was obedience.

So naturally, when I reached the end of my scheduled content and saw the next 30 days staring me directly in the face, I knew what I was supposed to do.

Or at least I thought I did.

Sit down. Create the next batch. Schedule another 30 days.

Except…I couldn’t.

Every time I tried to make myself move in that direction, something in me resisted it. Not because creating ahead was suddenly bad. Not because planning had stopped being wise. But because this time, the instruction was different.

Post for today.

That was it.

Not 30 days.

Not next week.

Today.

And I wrestled with that because my previous instruction made sense. It had worked. It made me productive. It saved me time.

And most importantly, God was the One who told me to do it in the first place.

So how does obedience become disobedience in one month?

Because obedience isn’t simply doing what God said.

Obedience is responding to what God is saying.

When the Step Changes

I made the one post.

Then I received instruction for something else.

So I did that.

That step led to another thing.

Then another.

About two hours later, I looked up and realized that several things across my entrepreneurial spaces had suddenly started coming together.

And they were all connected.

One small act of obedience had opened the door to the next instruction. Then the next. Then the next.

Had I sat down and batched 30 days of content because that seemed like the most logical and productive use of my time, I might have accomplished exactly what was on my schedule.

And missed everything God was doing outside of it.

That’s when I understood:

God wasn’t asking me to abandon discipline. He was asking me to stay close enough to follow His movement.

There is a difference.

This Is What I Mean by Slow Dancing With God

Imagine slow dancing with someone.

You don’t need to know every step that’s coming.

You don’t need to see the entire dance floor.

You don’t need a printed itinerary explaining where you’ll be four minutes from now.

You stay close.

You feel the shift.

A slight movement tells you which direction you’re going next.

When the leader steps forward, you respond.

When he turns, you turn.

When he slows down, you slow down.

And when he changes direction, you don’t keep walking straight because that’s the direction we were going five seconds ago.

You follow.

That’s intimacy with God.

Sometimes we want God to give us an instruction we can turn into a formula so we don’t have to keep asking Him what comes next.

But relationship doesn’t work like that.

God has a flow.

He has movement.

He has timing.

And sometimes the instruction changes because He knows what the next step is connected to.

We don’t.

Don’t Turn an Instruction Into an Idol

This convicted me because sometimes God gives us an instruction and we become so committed to executing it that we stop checking whether He’s still saying it.

We build schedules around it.

Systems around it.

Expectations around it.

Sometimes even identities around it.

Then God nudges us in another direction and we’re confused because:

“But You told me to do this.”

And He did.

For that step.

Noah had to build the ark, but he wasn’t supposed to spend the rest of his life building it.

Israel followed the cloud and the fire. When it moved, they moved. When it remained, they remained.

There was nothing wrong with the place God had previously told them to stay.

The problem would have been remaining there after God moved.

That’s why proximity matters.

We cannot become so married to what God said that we miss what God is saying.

Sometimes Productivity Can Compete With Obedience

Batching 30 days of content would have looked responsible.

It would have looked disciplined.

It would have looked productive.

Nobody watching from the outside would have called it disobedience.

But that’s the thing about walking closely with God: sometimes obedience won’t be measured by whether the decision was good.

The question is whether it was His.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.”
— Proverbs 3:5–6

My understanding said, Batch the content. You already know this works.

His instruction said, Today.

And today unlocked something I couldn’t see.

Sometimes we’re asking God to bless our productivity while He’s trying to interrupt it.

And I’ve decided He has permission.

He has permission to disrupt my calendar.

He has permission to interrupt my systems.

He has permission to rearrange my regular order of business.

He even has permission to interrupt something I’m excited about.

Because if He’s leading me, disruption isn’t necessarily delay.

Sometimes disruption is direction.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Maybe that’s what this season is teaching me.

Daily bread.

Not because planning is wrong.

Not because preparation is wrong.

Not because we should wake up every morning without structure and call chaos “being led by the Spirit.”

But because no plan I create gets to replace my dependence on God.

Jesus taught us to pray:

“Give us this day our daily bread.”
— Matthew 6:11

Daily.

There are seasons when God may hand you a blueprint far into the future.

And there are seasons when He may only illuminate today’s step.

Both require trust.

But there is something deeply intimate about waking up and saying:

What are we doing today, God?

Not because I have no plans.

But because my plans belong to You.

Not because I don’t value discipline.

But because I value Your direction more.

Not because I’ve stopped preparing for tomorrow.

But because I refuse to become so focused on tomorrow that I miss what You’re doing today.

Stay Close Enough to Feel the Shift

Maybe some of us don’t need another strategy right now.

Maybe we need proximity.

We need to get close enough to recognize when the rhythm changes.

Close enough to recognize the nudge.

Close enough to know when yesterday’s instruction has completed its assignment.

Close enough to follow without demanding the entire choreography first.

Because God can see what one act of obedience is connected to.

He knows what waits behind the next yes.

He knows which conversation, idea, opportunity, person, revelation, or assignment is attached to the step He’s asking you to take right now.

You don’t have to know.

You just have to stay close.

So in this season, I’m learning to slow dance with God.

I’m letting Him lead.

If He says plan 30 days, I’ll plan 30 days.

If He says today, I’ll do today.

If He says move, I’ll move.

If He says wait, I’ll wait.

And when His step changes, I don’t want to be so committed to the old rhythm that I miss it.

He has the right and authority to change my plans because I trust His plan more than I trust my understanding.

I don’t need to know the whole dance.

I just need to stay close enough to the One leading it.