He Is Waiting for a Sign Before He Decides

The decision has been on the table for about fourteen months and both options are still open, which is the only part he has been actively maintaining.

He would describe himself as waiting. He would say it with a straight face and would not be being dishonest, because from the inside it feels exactly like waiting, and waiting is a respectable thing.

What has changed, and what he has noticed, is that the waiting now has a job.

If he moves and it goes badly, that is on him. If he waits and it goes badly, it is a thing that happened. Nobody has to be blamed and nothing has to be accounted for, and he can carry a bad outcome much more easily if he did not choose it.

He is not sure when the waiting picked that up. He suspects it was somewhere around month six, and that it has been doing that job ever since, and that nothing has been coming anyway.

The verse addressed to a man in the dark tells him what to do

There is a verse in Isaiah that names this man specifically and then gives him an instruction.

Who is among you that feareth the LORD, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God. (Isaiah 50:10, King James Version)

Let him trust in the name of the LORD, and stay upon his God.

Read what the instruction is not. It is not, let him wait until there is light.

The verse describes a man with no light and then tells him what to do while he still has none, which means the darkness was never expected to be the thing that lifts before anything happens.

You are given something to do rather than something to wait for. Isaiah 50 names the condition and then gives an instruction inside it, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old verse take away a policy a man has been running for fourteen months.

The light in the psalm is deliberately small

There is a line about light that people quote and that describes something much smaller than they usually imagine.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. (Psalm 119:105)

A lamp unto my feet.

An oil lamp in that world lit about a step. It was not a floodlight and it did not show a road, it showed the ground immediately in front of a person.

Which is a description of an arrangement where a man gets the next step and not the route. If he had the route he would not need the lamp for the walking, only for the reading.

You are given a step rather than a route. Psalm 119 picks a lamp rather than a beacon, and it is His Spirit who makes an old piece of equipment describe what is actually available.

The offer has no lecture attached

There is an instruction in James about what to do when a man does not know, and there is one clause in it that changes what it is.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. (James 1:5)

Upbraideth not.

Without scolding. Without making a man feel it for having to ask.

And notice the shape of what is promised. He does not promise a sign or a confirmation or a feeling. He says wisdom, which is a thing a man uses to decide with rather than a thing that decides for him.

You are offered wisdom rather than confirmation. James 1 names what is given and rules out the tone, and it is the Holy Spirit who makes an old offer sound like something usable on a Tuesday.

The direction comes on the way, not before it

There is a proverb about direction that people read backwards, and the tense is the whole thing.

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (Proverbs 3:6)

In all thy ways acknowledge him.

The acknowledging happens in the ways. It is not something that occurs before a man sets off, in a stationary condition, and then produces a route.

And the directing follows it. That is the order the sentence is written in, and it describes a man in motion being steered rather than a man standing still being briefed.

You are steered on the way rather than briefed before it. Proverbs 3 puts the acknowledging inside the ways and the directing after, and it is His Spirit who makes an order of clauses undo a policy.

And Philippians says who is at work in the wanting

There is a sentence in Philippians about what is going on underneath a decision.

For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:13)

Both to will and to do.

The willing is included. Not only the doing, but the wanting that comes before it, is described as something being worked in a man.

Which is worth knowing for somebody who has been waiting for an external confirmation while treating his own inclinations as untrustworthy noise. That verse says something else is going on in the noise.

You are being worked on at the level of what you want. Philippians 2 names both the willing and the doing, and it is God who is described as doing it by His Spirit rather than a sign in the sky.