God may seem very far away from the stressful - yet ordinary - decisions we're facing. But He's not far away at all. Jesus spoke of being with us and guiding us on our daily journey when He said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."
God's Will is the blueprint, the unique Way God calls us to walk. God's Truth is revealed in the daily signposts leading us on our path. We find God's Truth for us, as Fr. Richard Rohr says, "by seeking the truth of each situation in that situation as best as we can figure it out." Our minds, our bodies, our hearts, the situation itself and the words and actions of other people are all clues, all pieces of a puzzle we can assemble - sometimes in minutes - to guide our steps. The right steps will lead us to more of God's Life within us.
Remember - God is the God of the Present: God is "I Am." God is in the present moment, NOW, reaching out to us and guiding us. And Jesus says to love God with "our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength." (Mark 12: 30.) When we love God with our whole being, our hearts, our souls, our minds, and our bodies can show us different aspects of the truth to help us reach the best decisions for us.
Being attentive with our bodies - looking, listening, touching, - gives us clues to a situation. So does being attentive to our stress levels, and our amount of physical and/or emotional energy. Our minds help us sift through our to-do list of upcoming duties, so we can separate the necessary duties from the unnecessary duties at this time and prioritize. Being attentive to our hearts and our intuition tells us where we yearn to be, who we yearn to care for, who or what we feel needs our attention most right now.
And others who know us and love us, often our spouses or family members, can speak unexpected truths to us that we need to listen to and to be obedient to in the best sense of the word. Yes, we are called to be obedient to the Truth, for the Truth is God With Us.
We can get anxious and uptight, thinking "I don't want to make a mistake." But Moses, speaking of God's Will as the Law, says "This Law is not beyond your strength or beyond your reach. It is not in Heaven.....nor is it beyond the seas.....No, the Word is very near to you. It is in your mouth and in your heart." (Deuteronomy 30: 11-14.) And the Holy Spirit, our Counselor, knows exactly who we are and personally guides us. If we ask for the Spirit's Wisdom, God will hear us and answer us. We have to trust ourselves and trust God.
Sometimes God speaks a message to us in a soft whisper, like a tiny breath of wind, that quietly, persistently stays with us. It can take us moments, weeks, months, years, to finally listen to that Divine message and respond to it. God is patient with us. When we make that right decision, He will act to bring everything into place for us.
In the end we have to depend on God revealing His Will to our own individual conscience. God alone acting with us and within us can tell us what is the right thing for us to do. Sometimes our consciences tell us to act in ways that can alienate certain people around us. Sometimes our own families don't understand what we have to do. Sometimes our bodies and minds are frozen in terror, but we can read the signposts and we know the Truth of what God wants of us. Sometimes, in fidelity to our consciences, in obedience to the Truth and the Will of God, we have to walk the lonely Way of the Cross.
If we are poised to step forward in obedience to God, the Holy Spirit will make a way for us. All we have to do is pray, watch, listen, read the signs of the times, follow our heads and our hearts, have a foot poised and ready - and the right door will open, in God's perfect timing. We may want to walk through that door. Or fear may make us want to stay where we are and not walk through that opening. But if we walk through, in obedience to God's Will revealed by the Truth of the situation we are in, God's abiding love, joy, and strength always wait to uphold us on the other side.