IT SHALL BE TOLD THEE
“And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said unto me, Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do.” Acts 22:10
The apostle Paul was giving his testimony before the angry mob that sought to kill him. He rehearsed how he met Christ on the road to Damascus and how he asked the Lord, “What shall I do?” The Lord’s answer for him was, “Arise, and go into Damascus; and there it shall be told thee…” God only gave him partial instructions. Paul was given a small bit of information about what God wanted him to do, but most of what God wanted him to do would be given to him later.
The same is certainly true in our lives. God does not immediately inform us about everything there is to know about His will. He usually reveals His will a bit at a time. As with Paul, it is a good sign when those who claim to know Christ want to know His will. “What shall I do, Lord?” If we have turned from our sin and trusted Him as Savior, He is the Lord of our lives, and we should want to serve and obey Him. When a person is not interested in knowing and doing God’s will, there is cause for great concern regarding the matter of his spiritual condition. However, God is not going to give us every detail of His will from the beginning.
For one thing, there is much that God will one day make known to us that we could not understand or accept initially. God wants us to obey Him and trust Him by faith. He makes His will known to us as He sees fit. We do not follow Christ because we know everything there is to know about His plans for us and we completely approve. Rather, we follow Him because we know His will is best, and we trust Him with our future. As we grow in grace, God gives us more information about His will.
We see clear evidence of this in the way God dealt with Paul. In order for Paul to find out more about God’s plans, he had to obey the instructions he was given, which meant he had to go into Damascus. For us to get further instructions about what God would have us do, we must be obeying the instructions we have. Here is a common mistake that people make. They want to know about God’s will for the future, yet they are not obeying the will of God they already know. The principle is simple: as we walk in the light we have been given, we can trust God to give more light as needed.