how to know what God wants you to do. If you have a decision in your life right now where you're like, God, how do I, where do I go, what's the direction that you're leading me in, what do I choose? I'm gonna help you with that because I was reading today, and the Holy Spirit helped me. We were at the beach reading the Living Bible translation. This is a thought-for-thought translation; it's more like a paraphrase. And it was saying this in James chapter one, verse five: If you want to know what God wants you to do, ask him, and he will gladly tell you, for he is always ready to give a bountiful supply of wisdom to all who ask him, and he will not resent it. For six: But when you ask him, be sure that you really expect him to tell you, for a doubtful mind will be as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind, and every decision you then make will be uncertain as you turn first this way and then that.

if you don't ask with faith, don't expect the Lord to give you a solid answer. How basically just powerful is that word in its just like I feel like he was talking straight to me, and that's what the word of God does, right? It pierces your heart, cuts more than the bone, it cuts straight to the spirit. And um, the part ex when he said yo, every decision you make will be uncertain, that is me. I'm talking every decision I make is uncertain. Every, even if it feels certain, I change my mind afterwards, whether a couple hours later or days, whatever. I do this about every little thing. It's so embarrassing to admit on the internet, but um, my wife's right here and she knows that about me as well. I just, everything. You guys have seen my profile picture change a hundred times, my name on my channel, everything changes. Why? I'm just, I'm like a wave tossed by the wind. There's, there's the cool thing about surfing is there's like regular swell and there's

wind well regular swell is like the energy or surging throughout the water in the ocean, and that's some good waves. There's some good waves and winds well too, but it's different. Windswell is like howling waves off the coast, picking up and flipping these waves and making them do weird things. For example, last week I was paddling for this wave, paddling, paddling, paddling, and I was waiting for the wave to pick me up and move, speed me up, get me on my way, but it didn't do that. I looked to my right and the waves over there. Now that's what happens, they shift last moment. Why? The energy is not coming from beneath, it's coming from an outside source. When you choose to ask God anything, especially for wisdom, without faith, you're like that wind. You're getting your energy from somewhere else. You're not getting that energy focused from the Holy Spirit within, deep within you, deeper than the deepest oceans. It's not coming up this way, it's coming in from an outside

your education, your experiences, what you think is best, and he says, Don't expect to get any solid answer from God if you come like that. You're coming at him wrong. You got to come at him right. But how do we come at him right? It's hard not to be like that wave. There's a verse that my grandma loved. It's Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. How do we come to God and ask him for the wisdom that James says he wants to give us? He's willing to give us. He won't resent us if we ask. How do we get that? We got to come to him and not lean on our own understanding. We got to lean on his understanding. As long as we're leaning on our understanding, we're being picked up and moved around like a wave tossed by the wind because our understanding is faulty. You know, kids are great at this. My kid today

He was like, you know, arguing with his brother, and I was like, stop arguing with your brother. Just you guys are squabbling over nothing. Stop. And he looked at me, and he goes, why should I? And I was like thinking of every 90s kids movie I watched, and when the parents said stop that, and the kid was like, why should I? And when in the movie, it's disrespectful. The way my son said it was like no, literally like why, why should I? Why? What's the big deal? Why can't I squabble? Why can't I talk to him this way? Why can I argue with him? He really wanted to know what was wrong. Why? Because he's four. At first, I was like, is this a disciplined moment? And then I thought about how he said it, and I was like, he really just wants to know. And kids do that. They don't lean on their understanding the way adults do. I do not like being told what to do. I don't like having to ask for help. Why? I'm insecure.

as heck, and so I'd just rather figure it out on my own and then mess it up, which I do a lot. And so I want to be more like my son because to lean on God means to say, Father, why should I do the things that you're asking me to do? Why did you do things the way you did things? What am I missing here? Asking like that, any kid you meet, their favorite thing to say is why. We need to be like that. I was walking, you know, along these million-dollar homes, and there's these big slippery rocks. There's a shortcut to this beach that we were going to, and I was slipping. And when I slipped, I grabbed the wall of this million-dollar home, and I started to lean on that wall. As I took a couple steps, I'd move my hand and lean again. And I could not lean on my own weight and lean on that wall at the same time. All my weight was leaning on the wall. With God, you can't lean on Him and yourself at the same time.

you're going to choose either lean on his understanding of things or your understanding of things. If you lean on your understanding of things, you're going to slip. Your weight is going to be shifted like that wind pushing that wave, and you're going to slip, and you're going to fall, and it's going to be messy. It's going to be pain and hurt along God's way. There's still going to be some pain, there's going to be some suffering, there's going to be, you know, some hurt there, but the thing is you're going in the right direction. The thing is you are leaning fully on him. You don't have to worry about your understanding. His understanding is guiding you in the right way. He says, If you acknowledge me, I will direct your paths. How do we acknowledge him? This is how you acknowledge him. You're about to make a decision. You step towards what you think is the right way. You need to step, and you're thinking, Okay, yeah, I've been here before. I know

this experience, my education tells me this, the culture tells me this, the world tells me this, the mental health awareness movement tells me this. I'll go this way wrong, that's not acknowledging him, that's acknowledging the world, not the word. To go the right direction, you got to acknowledge the word. Why? I like how it says the living Bible on here. You know who that is? Jesus. He is the living Bible, the word of God made flesh. John chapter 1, 100% man, 100% God, the one who is always here, has no beginning, has no end. Before you were known, before the earth was known, before the universe, he was there. His name is Jesus. He made everything that you can see. He made the things that are helping you see called your eyes. He made everything, and he became flesh. He was born two thousand years ago, and this Bible is him. These words are him. He's the word of God. And so to acknowledge him means to run to him when you're about to slip, when you're about to fall, when you're about to be

flipped upside down by the winds of life. It's because you are acknowledging the wrong things. You're running to those things. You're not running to him. Run to him. Run here, even if it's just in your mind. If you don't have a Bible, this is a Bible that I keep in my car, except when I'm making YouTube videos, and I'm holding it in my hand right now. It's usually in my car because I want to be able to run to it when I'm at the beach, when I'm at the coffee shop, when my wife is going into the store to buy a t-shirt for our kid because we forgot to bring a t-shirt, and he can't go in the store without a t-shirt. And I'm sitting in the car waiting for her to come out with the other kid in the back of the car. I want to be able to run here, not somewhere else. Run here. Don't run where you're comfortable. Don't run to the place that says, I think I know better than God, because although you

would never say that. Although I would never say that outside of my mind, I'm about to say it outside of my mind right now. I think I know better than God at times. That's why I don't lean on Him. That's why I don't ask Him, like James is saying, with full faith. And that's why I'm not. He's not giving me a solid answer because I'm trusting in myself. I'm thinking, God, I kind of know better than you than this. I realize I do this because I do it to my wife. We have a meeting every Thursday, and in that meeting, we talk about the podcast, the next episode of Eamon podcast. And a lot of times, I'll make decisions in my head and then ask her, What do you think we should do about this? And she'll look at me, and she'll know the mood I'm in, and she'll say, You know what? Just do whatever you want to do because you already have a decision that you've made, and I know it's just you're not going to want to hear what I

have to say you're just going to do what you want to do anyway, and I can't tell you how many decisions I've made that have been so bad because I didn't involve her. Why God has put her in my life to point out the fact that, Alex, you don't know everything, and you're horrible at listening. That's about one of the greatest things about my wife, and I'm so glad I learned that. You know, my life changed when Lokolani became a part of the podcast because I saw through the lens of everything I do and how I'm trying to act like I have it all together, and I don't. That's a great way to get hurt, especially in surfing. You know, one of the surfing podcasts I listen to, he says, Go out and look at the waves for minutes upon minutes. Look at the waves, study it. The water is doing something different every single day. Go out there and talk to people. Say, 'Hey, what's that out? What's going on? What's going on out here? How is it today?

What are the conditions? Talk to people why you don't know it all, and if you do, you can get hurt. I've gotten hurt so many times surfing like this. Life is the same way; it's the same exact way. Acknowledge the word of God. Run to it in your mind. What does the word of God say about this? What does Jesus say about this? A great place to run, always, if you don't know a lot of Bible verses, always run to the cross. The cross will give you the wisdom to learn and to live in every situation. Hebrews, the last chapter, talks about this. Think about how he suffered, and you'll know how to go through whatever you're going through. For example, talking about leaning on him. Jesus had no one to lean on when he was on the cross, so you could have the power and the ability to lean on him. If Jesus leaned on anyone, he wouldn't have been the total atoning perfect sacrifice for our sins. The whole thing about the cross was that he was alone going through what he was going.

through, and he was perfect, and he was innocent. He didn't lean on anyone; he leaned completely. We had no one to lean on. My God, my God, why are you forsaking me? He went to lean on God, and God wasn't there. Why? God had turned his face away. The hymn says so that he can look at us with love. The total wrath of God was completely appeased in Jesus. He leaned on no one so we could lean on him. Now we have the ability, we're forgiven, we're seen as perfect and righteous in God's eyes because Jesus rose from the dead. He didn't just die; he rose. If he just died, he wouldn't be a good savior. He not only died and was dead, fully dead, d-e-d dead, but he rose again from the grave, justifying us. Now he stands as the perfect sacrifice and justification for us. When God sees you, he sees Jesus. And so we have him to lean on in our weakness and our mistakes and our poor decisions. We can lean on him.

also this he cares about you on the cross. No one cared about Jesus. Look at his murderers. Look at his people spitting at him, cheering on him, saying, If you saved others, save yourself. No one cared about him, and it looked like the Father didn't care about him. Here's someone that was a preacher, doing miracles, a great man of God, an awesome God. You know, if he was so close to God, where's God now? That's what they were thinking. It seemed like God didn't care. Did God care about Jesus? Of course. But God chose to turn his face away. No one cared about him on the cross so that he could care for us, so he can look at us with care in his heart. He cares about you, and he cares that you move in the right direction, and he wants you to know exactly what he wants you to do. Because the way that he's gonna lead you is gonna always be towards life. Not knowing what God wants you to do is a horrible place to be because that means you're headed towards death.

God will lead you towards life, John 10. The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I've come to give you life and life more abundantly. That's Jesus's promise to us, to give you life, an abundant life at that. He cares about you, so whatever decision you know you made. I mean, think about the fact that Jesus made the decision to go to the cross so that you could be able to have the power to make the right decisions in life. He made that decision in the garden, Mark 14:36. Not my will, your will, Abba Father. If there's any other way, take this cup of suffering from me. Yet not my will, your will be done. Made the decision as he's sweating drops of blood from his forehead under the extreme amount of anguish that he's sweating blood, not sweat, extreme stress. The cup of suffering being poured out on him, and he decides, I'm going through with it. That right there will give you the power to make whatever decision that you're

making and just take a little time. I think that's a big thing. Run to the word of God. Spend time in here before you go to bed, before you know you start your day, whatever it is. Run to the word of God, but also take some time. You know, the Bible tells us not to be slow to speak, quick to listen. That's talking about decisions as well. Be slow to say what decisions you're going to make. Be slow to just make, to just choose, and be slow to listen to how the Lord's leading you to, you know, be slow to see, okay, am I being moved around by a wave right now? Is this energy of the Holy Spirit moving me, or is this just some outside source just flipping me around? What's going on? Um, be slow to that, you know, take a day, sleep on it. Anyway, love you. I hope this helps, and I'll see you in the next one. [Music] [Music] [Music] you

How to Know What God Wants You to Do | Alex Wilson

How to Know What God Wants You to Do | Alex Wilson