What happens when the answers come?

Mapping out the best way to wait and get clarity

Last week, I announced that I was closing Val Marie Paper. (More on that here, here and here.) It was a big decision that I had waited for clarity for the past two years. Did God want me to hire more people? Did He want me to make new partnerships? Invest in growth? Or sell the business? Or just walk away?

So much prayer has been devoted to this. It’s even what inspired our new Prayer Focus Map.

When the answer came 6ish weeks ago, it felt so good. Clarity! Answers! I know what to do now! 

I am still eternally grateful for God finally speaking so clearly to me about this. Knowing the next step is so important, but that’s just the thing. It’s the next step. 

Big answers we’ve waited for can feel like a destination when they’re actually a step on our journey. So, it got me thinking. 

Have we made answers the answer when really something else is the answer? Is there a chance we pursue answers more than we pursue God? One way I think we can tell is by asking ourselves this: 

How do we respond after we get an answer from God? 

Do we have the impulse to take it from here? Does a habit of devoted prayer in desperate seasons dry up as soon as we aren’t quite so desperate anymore? With a firm plan, do we feel any “incentive” to pray, or does it suddenly feel unnecessary since we got what we were looking for?

What happens when the answers come? 

As I’ve been sitting in what I thought was a beautiful destination of answers, I find myself asking more questions. Do we sell Val Marie Paper in some way (we’ve had many inquiries about this in the last week)? What do I do next?