1 Key When You Need to Hear From God

“Ruth the Moabitess asked Naomi, “Will you let me go into the fields and gather fallen grain behind someone who allows me to?” Ruth 2:2

No blinking lights.

Not even a neon sign that said, “This is the way, walk in it.” 

It happened without fireworks on an ordinary day over coffee.

“Next week I am going to put the house on the market. We need to move closer to my job.”

Fifteen years of marriage and everyday seeing him open his Bible early in the morning can cause you to fully trust his actions and words.

I can’t fully explain the feelings that followed those next couple of weeks. I write more about open doors h ere.

There were moments, and still are moments when I feel I am gasping for air, unsure what my next breath will be. Just as I come up for air I feel something pulling me back under. Your something may be very different from my something. It could be financial struggles, a difficult child or spouse, or maybe a relationship that has gone bad. Just when things seem to get better, you’re hit with another wave.

All I know is that sometimes wisdom looks like doing the next best thing.

We want a neon sign but God wants us to obey the still small voice called wisdom. I mean I’ve seen others get clear words, like a bullhorn from heaven. Holy Spirit fire with words of prophecy. And yet He doesn’t always work that way. Honestly, God has moved heaven and shaken hell in past circumstances for our family.

But here we are…obeying a still small voice. Taking baby steps of faith waiting for the sea to part. Trusting in the very character of who God is.

At this point in Ruth’s story, she was doing this very thing… simply accepting the next assignment placed before her. Naomi and Ruth had just arrived in town and they needed food. Ruth was willing to do whatever was necessary to provide for her mother­in ­law, even if it required her to pick fallen grain from a field.

Maybe radical obedience happens when we do the next thing in front of us. Because when we do the next thing in front of us, doors begin to open.

If Ruth would have sat waiting for manna to fall from heaven she never would have met her kinsman­redeemer. And if she never met her kinsman­-redeemer she never would found herself in the ancestry of King David and our Messiah.

We never know where our next act of obedience will lead us…we simply have to do what is in front of us and trust God with the rest.

Because sometimes you don’t know the water is going to part till you begin to walk through it.

Ruth had no idea she would find herself in the perfect situation, “So Ruth left and entered the fields to gather grain behind the harvesters. She happened to be in the portion of land belonging to Boaz, who was from Elimelech’s family” Ruth 2:3.

Sometimes you have to let go of the good to receive the better. God gives favor to ever small act of obedience.

Peace may not come until after the first steps are taken. The new door may not open until you let go of the last door.

“think about Him in all your ways, and He will guide you on the right paths” Proverbs 3:6.

What is your next best thing? God may be waiting for you take your next step.