If you do not cut the moorings, God will have to break them with a storm and send you out. Launch all on God, go out on the swelling tide of his purpose, and you will have your eyes opened. If you believe in Jesus, you are not to spend all your time safe inside the harbor, full of delight. You have to get out into the great deeps of God and begin to know for yourself. You have to develop spiritual discernment.

When you know you should do a thing and you do it, God immediately grants you more knowledge. Look at the places where you’ve become stuck spiritually. You’ll find that your entrenchment began when you failed to do something you knew you should. You procrastinated, thinking there was no urgency. Now you have no perception and no discernment. In times of crisis, you are spiritually distracted instead of spiritually self-possessed.

Your spiritual destiny is to know and to do the will of God (Romans 12:1–2). Many who refuse to know God’s will practice a counterfeit form of obedience: they manufacture crises in order to play at sacrificing themselves, hoping their passion will be mistaken for discernment. It’s easier to sacrifice yourself than to fulfill your spiritual destiny, but God’s word on the matter is clear: “To obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22).

Never live on memories. Beware of nostalgically pining for the safety of the harbor, for the person you used to be. God wants you to be something you’ve never been. He wants you to find out all you long to know. “Anyone who chooses to do the will of God will find out . . .” (John 7:17).

Wisdom from Oswald

To live a life alone with God does not mean that we live it apart from everyone else. The connection between godly men and women and those associated with them is continually revealed in the Bible, e.g., 1 Timothy 4:10.  Not Knowing Whither, 867 L