Milk and Honey in 2022

What are you going to do today?

This question looms in front of you each day when you wake up and begin your morning routine. Each day you use your praying, brain power, and planning abilities to arrive at its answer.

Why? Because the answer is like a venti mocha. It gives you instant gratification, a surge of energy and motivation as you run out the door get something done, and pat yourself on the back because you accomplished something.

Here’s another question:

What does December 2022 look like? Where am I headed?

“Yeah, that’s a great question. I should think about that some time,” you think, right before you dive back in to planning today. This question is like a piece of kale. It’s healthy, and it will have long-term benefits, but somehow the drive to consume it and find its answer just isn’t there.

Thinking about the future takes time, and if you are anything like me, you are tempted to start 2022 at a running pace, taking advantage of the fresh motivation that comes with fireworks and countdowns and balls dropping in New York city.

You are already ten days into 2022. What have you done already, now that almost three percent of the year is already gone?

The drive to accomplish, to focus on what to do each day, is a tremendous force in your life. And it is a helpful force. Otherwise, you might spend every day eating Milk Duds and sleeping in until eleven (Milk Duds are amazing!)

But this drive can keep you from stopping and taking time to focus on the future.

It’s like when you drive your car on a windy road. There are signs that tell you to slow down because a sharp turn is coming. It’s really important that you obey those signs, or you might fall off the road. But if you don’t punch the right address into Waze before you start heading down the road, you might do an amazing job of staying on the road, but you will end up at the wrong destination.

Since this is a place for you as a leader to hear God’s voice, let me tie all of this back into hearing God’s voice.

Most people ask the question, “God, what should I do today?” This is an important question. You want to have a day by day, moment by moment, sensitivity to what He is telling us. But what would it look like for you to ask the question, “Where will I be in a year?”

When God came to Moses at a burning bush to send him out to deliver the Israelites, one of the first things he told him was that he would go to a land of milk and honey. Then he told him to go speak to Pharoah.

In other words, the command to speak to Pharoah was the answer to, “What are you going to do today?” But the promise of going to a land of milk and honey was an answer to, “Where am I headed?”

I wrote about how to get a picture of the future, about how to hear God to know where you are headed. I encourage you to read that article and then spend some time asking God the question, “What does December 2022 look like? Where am I headed this year?”