What Would You Like to Do?

How often do we covet this question when we should turn it over to God?

A little while back I was watching a television show and a grandfather asked his grandson, “what do you want to do?” Without hesitation, the grandson answered, “go to the river!!”

I loved the child’s willingness to say exactly what was on his mind. To answer the question honestly and with wild abandon. Often as we grow up, we start to cater our answer to that question (if giving one at all) to the person asking it. We don’t want to burden them by asking to do something they don’t want to do, and we fear judgment of admitting exactly what we want.

What if it’s boring? Lame? Annoying? Entirely uncool?

At some point, the answer to this question becomes, “whatever you want to do”, or “I’m good with anything.” And while at times I think this is true, I also know from experience that after giving this answer there is sometimes a hidden hope that the other person will decide to do the thing we wanted to do all along. It is a people pleaser’s dream.

When we are alone—perhaps just for the afternoon, for the evening, for the weekend, or if we live alone and spend a lot of time solo—we still ask this question. We think it, we ruminate on it, we sometimes repeat it over and over in a motivational attempt to get ourselves off the couch, what do I want to do?

And while it may still be challenging, eventually we will set or find a path that seems satisfying. We will buckle down and allow ourselves to be selfish and do whatever feels good. Which is great, healthy, necessary.

But how often do we covet this question when we should turn it over to God?

How often do we ask, “God, what would you like me to do?”

And I don’t just mean in regards to scheduling out our days.

God, how would you have me handle this situation?

God, what would you like me to put my focus on right now?

God, what direction would you have me go?

So often we try to free ourselves from people pleasing and to focus entirely on ourselves and what we want to do. But I think somewhere in the process, we count God as “people.”

We decide that we need to take control and make decisions, that we need to please only ourselves. And when we get a taste of that freedom, we hunger for it, forgetting that following the plans God has for our life is not inhibiting but purpose giving, and that handing that question over to God is not belittling but strengthening.

When we give that question to God, we don’t have to sit in hidden hope that he’ll answer it the way we want, because we can find comfort in knowing that he’ll answer it the way we need. And while that might not always be easy, it is affirming that He has everything under control.

We cannot always surrender that question to other people, too afraid to tell them what we want. But we also can’t withhold the question from God, too stubborn to risk not getting what we want.

We must trust that God knows better than us, and that even if we don’t feel like it, God still sees us as that child with reckless abandon. He knows when to say “no” and when to say, like the grandfather said, “Okay, let’s go!”