When I go through what I consider a challenging time, I find myself wondering what to do next, desperately trying to find an answer. But listening to a sermon yesterday helped.

How to Handle A Setback by Pastor Daniel Floyd

The current challenging situation is plain and simple: I thought I was going to do one thing within a year, and one conversation has me revisiting that. However, the revisit has me in a quandary. So many questions and very few answers. The person I would like to discuss this with seems to be making sure to be unavailable, which doesn’t help. However, there is something about faith that from time-to-time needs a workout.

Pastor Daniel used as his text the story of Peter who, after James had been persecuted, found himself in prison, thinking he would be the next one to lose his life. But scripture says that though Peter was shackled in chains and had four guards round the clock watching him, he was able to get rest. Acts 12 describes Peter as sleeping while the church earnestly was in prayer for him.

It was the type of prayers that had the church pressing into the situation and not shrinking away from it. They did not just accept what Peter was going through. They were prayers that said to God that they would continue to pray to Him until they got a breakthrough.

Pastor Daniel: “The setback will cause you to either lean in or shrink away. For some of us we just accept the lot in life. If you are only expecting what your imagination can create, you are limiting God by the ability of your intellect. “

The question is when you do that, are you limiting God by what you expect is your lot in life? If you are a believer in God, then believe that God is an Ephesians 3:20 God, the One who is able to do exceeding abundantly above what you think or imagine.

Pastor Daniel: “Don’t go with what you see, go with what God said…I am gonna come in agreement with what God said about me.”

One evening, an angel touched Peter and told him to quickly get up and get his clothes and shoes on. The chains fell off Peter’s wrists, and he got his gear on and followed the angel out of prison. Once outside, the angel left him, and Peter made his way to Mary’s house. He knocked on the door and when someone heard his voice, she told the others that it was Peter outside; they didn’t believe her.

Whatever the situation, the challenge, wherever painful place you are, you may ask God why you are experiencing this.

Pastor Daniel: “I’d like to reframe the question to what is God doing for you? When we frame it wrong, we see it wrong.”

God is outside of time. He is with me today and tomorrow before tomorrow comes,and He already knows what will happen. God wants to grow something inside you. Character grows real good in pain.

Pastor Daniel: “Faith gets a muscle it never had when you are walking through something challenging.”

Could it be the challenging situation is being experienced by me as a setup for the blessing that is about to come? The challenge while going through a challenging situation is we want God to quickly get us to that victory answer; we don’t like the challenge of waiting while that faith muscle is being developed. In the meantime,

Have you ever felt stuck between two things? Life is never simple as we make it. Stuck between betrayal and forgiveness; stuck between lack of direction and friendships that are falling apart. How could Peter in chains and be asleep between guards while not knowing what would happen next?
Why can’t we react the same way? Perhaps worry creeps in instead of rest.

Pastor Daniel: “Why would I be awake at night worrying about tomorrow when God is already there? If He can be trusted in your today, He can be trusted in all your tomorrows.”

These quotes and the remainder of the sermon encouraged me to forge on, allowing God to give my faith the muscles it needs to live life not in my own thoughts, but in His knowledge, trusting Him through the setbacks and challenging times. My prayers have to be in agreement with Him, the alpha and omega of my faith.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,… Ephesians 3:20 NIV

So, there was a plan, which was to occur the end of 2024. Due to events beyond my control, that didn’t happen. All the while I thought it would not happen anyway, so the fact that it did not happen were not surprising. Possibly next year, but now I am not so sure of that either. The whole issue has me in a conundrum. I want whatever I do to be the right thing, but how do I discover it?

When I looked up conundrum, the dictionary defined the word as an intricate and difficult problem. I agree with that, because it does not only involve me. It involves family members. I want to be in their lives, but sometimes I am not so sure I will be to the extent I want to be. It’s appearing to be complicated.

The next definition said a question or problem having only a conjectural answer, and the word conjectural means a conclusion deduced by surmise or guesswork. But I don’t want to be in a conundrum created by conjecture based on guesswork. And that leads me to the title:

What do I do when I don’t know what to do?

From a faith perspective, the answer is [for now] simple: I am choosing not to make any definitive decisions for now, not this year, and maybe not for three or four years down the road. (Okay, maybe not four years; perhaps the next two to three years from now.) But what do I do in the meantime?

1. Don’t rush things. I realized this week that I don’t have to make a decision, especially when there are other things that need tending to. For example, getting a handle on my finances and getting healthy are my top two concerns. There is nothing wrong with me doing all I can to get better with both.
2. Pray, pray, pray. Rely on God to keep me stable while asking and discovering answers. Actually, I am making discoveries now, which is really good. That helps me know that all is not lost, I’m not a failure, and I have not run out of time. This gives me a level of peace, at least to some extent. But when the peace seems to dissipate, that is the time to pray and ask for help even more.
3. Do what I can to locate the answers. Do research. Believe it or not, information that needs to be to be found is in the bible. What does the bible have to say on topics such as faith, trust, that God has a plan for you, and these next words…
4. Be patient and wait. I never thought I would think this, but it’s a good thing to wait for things to unfold. I admit I am used to being the one to come up with quick answers, and the majority of time they weren’t good solutions, which meant I should have waited for something better. Because the decisions I want to discover are very important, I don’t want to screw this up. Not at this time in my life. I want to make wise decisions, and I want God to be involved.
5. I am discovering that when something unfolds during this season of discovery, I am in awe. That is because I know the answers are not mine, but God’s. I can’t fully explain it, but I just know when something pops in my spirit it’s from Him. For me, this is a new way of doing life.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

God’s plans will prosper me and not give me harm; God’s plans provide hope and a future. All these things I want. Please God, help me not to screw this up…