Instruments of Worship

When You Don’t Know What’s Next: Trusting God in Uncertain Seasons | Ep. 31

• Casey Rinkenberger • Season 2 • Episode 31

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A musician’s life can look different from day to day, week to week, and even season to season. As Christian musicians, we may deeply desire to follow the Lord’s will, yet it’s not always clear what that looks like. What’s the next step, Lord? Where are You leading?

That’s what we’re talking about today. Life is full of uncertainties — sometimes God clearly reveals His will, and other times, it feels hidden. But one thing we can always know for sure is that His ways are best. My hope is that today’s episode encourages you and offers Truth to hold onto as you navigate questions about your future and God’s plan for your life.


Discussion Questions - Try discussing with a friend of in our Facebook Discussion Group 

  • What are other uncertainties in the music career that we need to bring before the Lord, seek Him in, and Trust Him along the way?
  • Have there been times in your life where you have learned or witnessed that God’s ways are better than our ways? Or that what God wants is better than what we want? 
  • Do you have set apart time in your day where you can learn from God’s Word?  How has God revealed His will to you through knowing the Scriptures? 
  • Are you seeking to honor God in the small day to day decisions guided by His revealed will as much as you are in the big decisions of life? 
  • Why would God never call us to something contrary to His Word? 
  • Why do you think God sometimes doesn’t give us a clear answer? 
  • What are promises of God you can cling to in the uncertainties of life?


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SPEAKER_00:

Hi friends, my name is Casey Rinkenberger, and I am so excited to welcome you to the Instruments of Worship Podcast. This is a podcast dedicated to encouraging and equipping classical musicians to tie the name of Jesus with their instruments, but also their lives. One time on Instagram, I asked a question on one of my stories. What is a topic you'd like to see discussed on the podcast? Someone replied that, I'd love for there to be a podcast episode on following thoughts with the live just the uncertainties of a music career. And I knew exactly what she was talking about when it comes to uncertainties in the music career, like taking auditions, uncertainties, losing auditions, winning auditions, and then possibly having to move if necessary. Sometimes there are financial uncertainties of making a living with music, like will it even be possible? Because you have so many different sources of income and you're kind of hodgepodging it all together. There's uncertainties of building a studio and being able to find students and getting into the gigging scene and marketing yourself, becoming your own boss and being in charge of your schedule. What college do you go to? Are you gonna get married? When to start growing a family, what school do you go to? What teacher do you study with? What orchestras do you audition for? What different avenues of music to pursue? I'm not sure if you've asked or mulled over these questions before, but I have to wonder if you have. And maybe you're doing that right now. A musician's life typically looks different day to day, week to week, year to year sometimes, even season to season it in the grander scheme of life. And sometimes we really do want to follow what the Lord's will is for us. But we're really unsure of what that is. What's the next step, or where are you leading? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Life is full of uncertainties, and this is true for people from all types of seasons of life and career paths, but certainly it's also true for the musician. And I hope today's episode will encourage you and give you truth to cling to if you are wrestling with uncertainties about your future and God's plan for you. So let's get into it. Okay, so first let's define God's will. What is it? A simple Google search will tell you that God's will is defined as what God wants. The Greek word used in scripture 60 times regarding God's will is thalema, I think you pronounce it like that, maybe. Thalema means determinate will, wish, purpose, desire, or even pleasure. So, for example, one of the things we can know for certain, one of the most foundational of God's desires, is that God wants us to repent of our sins and trust in Christ. He finds pleasure in this, this is what he desires. But there are also other things God wants or desires in or for our lives, and sometimes it's obvious, sometimes he's already revealed it to us, and sometimes it's not clear, sometimes he hasn't revealed it to us, making it kind of a secret to us. And we'll talk about that more later. Still, the question is a good one to want to know what God wants for you, from you, and in your life. It's good to want to follow God's will, to want to do what he wants instead of what you want. And there's humility within asking that question and wanting to follow the answer, genuinely. Here's what Scripture has to say about it. After an exhortation in the beginning of the book of James to submit to God and to humble oneself, James 4, 13 through 16 continues on and it says, Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on a business, and make money. Why you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes, and all such boasting is evil. So this confirms that it is good to want to follow God's will. It's saying that if you just assume you can plow through life the way you want, do whatever you want, go wherever you want, that comes from a heart that probably does not fear God. A heart that is arrogant and boastful, not humble and submissive to the Lord. So that's why it gives the example of, oh, today, tomorrow we're gonna go and we're gonna do this and we're gonna spend this amount of time there, and we're gonna do this, and we're gonna for sure make a lot of money. Like it just shows that they're assuming a lot of things. When it says, actually, you don't even know what's gonna happen tomorrow, and I'd like to add, you don't even know what's gonna happen two minutes from now. You're assuming you know it all, but that could not be further from the truth. Only God knows it all, and only his ways are perfect and right. So it is good to fear the Lord and humbly submit your life and your will and what you want to God's will and what he wants. So that's a good question to ask, to want to know what the Lord's will is, to desire him to be at the forefront of your life, guiding and leading you throughout life, and bending your will to be in line with what God wants along the way. And the truth is that God's way legitimately is better. God's ways are legitimately better. Isaiah 55, 8 through 9 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So God's ways are so much better than our ways. They are always best. Our perspective is so small. It's like looking through the tiniest little peephole. Or another way I think about it, this might be silly, but if you picture a globe of the earth, legitimately, we as humans are a little teeny tiny speck standing on the globe. And from where I'm at, I can literally only see the things around me in my area. If I'm in a car, I see what's in my car and maybe around my car if I'm looking out the window. If I'm in my house, all I see is my house, and maybe some of the backyard again if I'm looking through the window. If I'm in my room with the door closed, literally all I can see is my room. And so when you then think about God is holding this globe in the palm of his hands, not only is he holding the earth, but the entire universe, which he made and knows inside out, he sees absolutely the whole picture. He's not just on the globe looking up and out, and only in the little sphere that we can see. He literally sees it all. The whole picture. He knows, he understands everything from before time began through creation, through the time of Jesus, up until now, and then even into the future. He knows the heart of man and he is intimately acquainted with all our ways. There is nothing that is not known by God. So you have to remember that God's will then is coming from a much more informed perspective than ours, much less from the one and only true God, the ancient of days, who is wisdom incarnate, love incarnate, goodness incarnate, righteousness incarnate, perfectionist incarnate. His character is perfect, good, holy. So what he wants is so much higher and better than what we could understand in our fallen human fleshly state. It only makes sense then that we should want what he wants more than what we want. Our desires are tainted by our flesh. But God's desires are perfect and holy, and it even goes against our flesh to follow and be submissive to someone else. But if all these things that I've just said are true, it only makes sense to want God's ways. So, like I said before, sometimes God has already revealed his will to us, and that's because it's written in scripture. So once we become Christians, we are God's children, and like a loving parent, God seeks to lead us in his good and right way. He has revealed so much to us through his word, he's not trying to hide his will from us. So this is called the technical term is God's revealed will, what God has revealed to us in his word. For some examples, first Peter two fifteen says, For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. So God's will is for us to do good. First Thessalonians four, three says, For this is the will of God, your sanctification, that you abstain from sexual immorality. So God's will is for us to be sanctified and abstain from sexual immorality. First Thessalonians five, sixteen through eighteen says, Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So it's pretty simple. Rejoice, pray, give thanks, that's God's will. Isn't it interesting that all three of these examples include for this is the will of God, or for this is God's will for you. So often I think we get wrapped up in God's will, meaning, what will I do? Where will I do it? Who will I do it with, or when will I do it? It might be even the reason you are listening to this episode, you have these questions in mind. But God's revealed will reminds us that God is less concerned about what your career is or what state you end up living in, and so much more concerned about who you are and where your heart is. God's will is for you to be like Jesus. And can you be like Jesus if you're a fireman? Yes. Or if you're an accountant or a teacher, a conductor, a performer, or if you live in California, or if you live in a small town in Illinois, if you get married, or if you're not. And of course, the answer is to all those, of course. And don't hear this as me saying that God doesn't care about those questions. He absolutely does. He cares so much about these important decisions, and he cares about the things that are heavy on your heart. He's got amazing plans for you, and he's working in the big decisions, but he's also working in the small details of your life. Just don't forget, ultimately, God wants you to be more and more transformed into the image of his son. So read and study your Bible, study the life of Jesus and follow him. Be faithful in the day-to-day, mundane decision making of who you choose to follow, who you choose to worship, who you choose to serve. God's will for you in those things is not a secret, not a secret at all. He wants you to follow him, worship him, and serve him. But we make small decisions every day, many throughout the day, that decide if we do this or not. Life is made of so many small decisions, day in and day out, even moment by moment sometimes. Will you choose to do what God wants of you or what you want to do? Will you choose to build your kingdom through people's praise or performances, or will you choose to build the Lord's kingdom and give him the glory? Will you choose to react selfishly to frustrating situations or people? Or will you choose to react patiently, lovingly, and honor the Lord in that? Will you choose to listen to or watch things that are good and right and honor the Lord with that, or will you disregard that and do what you want? And the list of small decisions we make in a day is endless. And these are just a few examples. But don't grow weary of doing good, says Galatians 6 9. These small decisions are the steps one in front of another that take us down one of two roads, the road of self and of the world, or the road of God's way. And we just talked about how much better is God's way. So be faithful to God in the micro decisions, and he will be faithful to lead in the macro. It's very likely though that you chose to listen to this episode because there are aspects of your future that are uncertain. And boy, they feel big, they feel scary and confusing sometimes, aspects of your future that just feel unique to you, and it's hard to tell where the Lord is leading in that. I mentioned this earlier, how sometimes God's will is not clear. Sometimes there are aspects of our future that God hasn't revealed to us, things that we don't get to know yet, and that makes it a secret to us. So that's why it's called the secret will of God. This is legitimately kind of an awkward spot to be in because it's true that God in his providence is working all things together and has a beautiful plan, and his way is always best. But when it comes down to making decisions, it's kind of like, uh God, I kind of need to know how to make this decision right now. And I can appreciate and accept God's secret will when I don't have to make any big decisions, but when those come into play, we can sometimes get really confused. So here's my attempt at giving you three truths from God's words that will hopefully help you know how to approach these situations and just the heart that maybe should go along with them. So the first is to trust God. I can't even begin to try to explain to you in all the ways that God works. His secret will, there's still a level of mystery to it. Sometimes he works in ways that are obvious. Sometimes there are ways that he works that aren't as clear, that maybe he's working behind the scenes and orchestrating things and you he is leading, but you really have no idea that he is in the moment. And so no matter how God is working, we have to still trust God. Trust God with your uncertainties. Proverbs 3, 5 through 6 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight. So submit to him in what is clear, like we just talked about, in what's been revealed, and in those small decisions day in and day out. And then trust that he will guide you. He is leading even when you don't see it or you don't know. So I've definitely experienced that where you can't tell maybe that God's leading in the moment. And sometimes you even wonder if he is. And so this is just an encouragement to remind yourself that if you or I needed to know God's secret will, we would. So clearly we don't need to know. And so I can just trust the one who does know, though. And so find peace in that. I know that it's sometimes not the answer we wish we could hear, but there is peace in that, that there is someone taking care of it, there's someone who is leading and guiding your life, and you don't have to stress, you know? I love how it says he will make your path straight. So you don't have to. It didn't say trust in the Lord with all your heart, not on your own understanding, and then you just have to figure it out. No, it says he will make your path straight. So even when the path is not physically laid out in front of you or obvious necessarily, trust God in his word when he promises you that. Again, trusting God to lead your path doesn't always mean that you will see clearly him orchestrating it all together. It might not be until later that you see what he's doing. But in the meantime, we trust. Trust that the Spirit will guide where you are. I find so much comfort in the fact that there is nothing we can do to in quotes mess up God's plan for us. He will accomplish his good and best purposes. And the way he does this is mysterious and incredible, and solely through his divine power. And so an example of this is in Acts 16, 6 through 7. This is when Paul and his companions were on their second missionary journey, and it says, They went through the region of Phrygia and Glacia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come to, we're just gonna call it Mycia, they attempted to go into Bythynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Isn't that so cool? From my knowledge, we really have no idea how the spirit accomplished this. Was it by circumstances getting in their way, like somebody got sick or had to go a different direction? I have no idea. Or was it by a conviction in their heart or somebody telling them or something else? We may not know, but what's clear is somehow they got the picture that this was God shutting the door. Even to a very good thing like preaching the word. The Spirit was still guiding and he had something better. He had a bigger story that he was writing. And of course, Paul was probably confused by this. This was not how he had planned it. But the fact is that God for certain accomplished his purposes. Whether Paul and his companions were aware of his bigger purpose in the moment or not, but God was leading and they still followed his leading. So God is just bigger than we could ever imagine. His ways are so much higher. Also, meaning though, sometimes we may not know exactly how he's working in all of it. So trust him, even in the midst. But along the way, I would just say cling to his promises. When things are unknown, cling to what is, and that is who God is and his promises. God always keeps his promises, so we can just trust them to be true. Joshua 21 45 says, Not one of all the Lord's good promises to Israel failed. Every one was fulfilled. Here are some promises that you can cling to. Romans 8 28 says, We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Isaiah 41 10 says, So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. You can hear in these verses the I wills, words that are said with certainty. There is no wishy-washiness. Deuteronomy 31.8 says, The Lord Himself goes before you, and he will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Don't be afraid, do not be discouraged. It doesn't say he might be with you. He says he will be. These are promises. And these are just to name a few. So seek God's word and cling to the promises that you know for certain, even in the uncertain times of life. The next thing would just be to wait patiently. Give up your timelines. I know that it's so hard. I really struggle with this. Again, the Lord's ways are so much higher and better than we could ever imagine, or even the ideas that we could come up with ourselves. So seek to want his timeline more than yours. So much of life is the waiting. Very few times in life do you experience getting what you've actually waited for. Again, in the day-to-day, we choose will we wait patiently and deny our timeline, or will we wait begrudgingly? Psalm 27, 14 exhorts us, wait for the Lord, be strong and take heart. Wait for the Lord. So let's talk about when it comes time to make a decision. I hope you've gotten the picture so far that this is really God's world, this is his story, and we're just living in it. You know, there's kind of a phrase that people say that. But he is so gracious and lets us be a part of it. He gives us even preferences and desires and giftings and skills and lets us make decisions sometimes. So when it comes to making decisions, I can just speak to my experience and the things that I've learned from other people along the way. But I think there is more freedom than we would sometimes think when it comes to God's will and how that coincides with making decisions. So here are some questions, though, that you can maybe ask and think through as you might have big decisions or small decisions or just questions about the uncertainties of what's coming up next in your life. So the first one would be have you prayed and given God the time and space to speak into it? Of course, our first move should always be to consult him through prayer, inviting him in, asking him specifically about things, just asking him to open and close doors. I mean, even that is a way that maybe he's guiding us is opening and closing doors and and we can't force doors open if he's closed them. That's what he's meant to be. And if he's opened them, then maybe he's wanting you to walk through. Another question would just be: have you renewed your mind in God's word? Are you asking things that are contrary to God's word? Are you asking things that are already kind of filtered through a renewed mind or transformed heart lens? He would not lead you to do something that is unbiblical. That is something we can know for a fact. So is your heart and your mind filtering things through that biblical lens? Now, along those lines, is it unwise? I don't think that the Lord would necessarily ask you to do something unwise. And that's just counsel that I received as I was deciding between different colleges in that phase of life of just I remember being told or learning that if something's not unbiblical or it's not unwise, then there is potentially a lot of freedom when it comes to those decisions. God would certainly never ask you to do something unbiblical. And for me, I didn't feel like he was going to ask me to do something financially unwise when it came to deciding on a college. And so certainly the opening and the closing door sometimes coincided with that of a closed door might have been, well, that is just unreasonable. There weren't a lot of scholarships there. There was here and that sort of thing. So is it unbiblical? Is it unwise? And maybe this is also another time to ask, have you sought counsel? God can use other people to help along the way for sure. And they can also help to point towards wisdom. Proverbs 11 14 says, where there is no guidance, a people falls. But in an abundance of counselors, there is safety. So bringing other people in, people that are trusted, people who just love the Lord and love his word and know his word well, and that their heart and mind have been transformed, and they're also filtering everything through a biblical lens. So is it unwise? Is it unbiblical? Have you prayed about it? Then there may be freedom for you to choose. God may not have one specific thing he wants you to do or one specific place he wants you to go. I had a few colleges I was I was thinking about in the end, and I chose Baylor, and wow, I can see, man, how the Lord was leading there and he used it in my life. But absolutely, if I chose another place, the Lord would have used that too. I have no doubt. And so again, it's one of those things where I think he works mysteriously. There may not be one specific place. Maybe for some people there are, but from my convictions, he is just so much more concerned about who you are than necessarily what you do. And so as long as those boxes are checked and you're following his leading, you're asking him to speak into these things. But if at the end of the day, he may let you decide. And there's freedom in that. And I know sometimes it actually feels like the opposite of freedom for me, at least. Like I'd rather him just make the decision for me. But if you're depending on him along the way, you may just have to make a decision and trust that he will be there with you no matter what. So I would love to hear if there are ways that the Lord has didn't teaching you as you've had to make different decisions throughout life or the ways that He's He's shown up and led in your life, whether it's been obvious or not obvious, whether it's been easy to follow or hard to follow. Please feel free to share those stories with us in the description below or in our Facebook discussion group. I know that that didn't give you a ton to go off of when it comes to just the specifics. But again, I think that sometimes it's not cut and dry because that leads us to further dependence upon the Lord. If we could just look in scripture for an answer for everything, then we wouldn't necessarily need his spirit. We wouldn't necessarily need to depend on him. So I hope that we can lean in sometimes to those uncertainties and just get to know the Lord better through them as we navigate them and as we certainly lift it up to him. This is a complex topic to discuss. And I hope you'll be gracious with me as I've tried to just share and what I've learned so far in my life regarding these topics. I haven't lived a ton of life, but I've lived some and I have had to make some decisions. And so again, this topic is complex mainly because God is gonna work how he wants to work. There's not necessarily, I think, a cut and dry way that we can expect him to work, but we can expect that his ways are always best, and they are always going off without a hitch. As one of my favorite podcast hosts says, that God's eternal purposes are always going off without a hitch. So we can trust that. We can know that for sure, that his ways are best, even when sometimes they're unclear to us. Focus on what is clear, and that is God's promises and who he is. Lean into that when other things are uncertain in life. We don't always get to know how God is leading or guiding or orchestrating all these things together, but we can trust that however he does it is best. So God cares more about who you are than about what you do. Seek him the same in the small decisions of every day as you do in the large decisions of life. And when it comes down to making decisions, I believe that God's will is for you to become more like Jesus. I believe it's for you to make biblical decisions, decisions that align with scripture, may also be informed by different ways that God has gifted you and equipped you and given you skills and personalities, the way that He's uniquely crafted you. But then there's some freedom. So go out and enjoy it. And then remember just how big God is. When we have topics like this that sometimes include some parts of mystery, remember God is just so much bigger than we could ever imagine. And if I ever need a reminder of that, I go to Job 38 through 42. So I would encourage you to read that. Trust him to work however he wants to, and we can always know that that is best. So thanks so much for spending part of your day with me today. Make sure to check out the description for discussion questions that you can reflect on by yourself or with a group. We actually have a Facebook page that you can join where we talk about these discussion questions. We answer them and we encourage and we quip one another as we walk this road of being a Christian and the classical music. Please feel free to leave us a five star review if you like this episode, and I will see you next Monday.