This is the Way. Walk in it.

Are you at a crossroads in your life?  Do you have a big decision to make?  Do you have a choice of paths and need direction and guidance from God?  Well, He promises to give us just that! 

The LORD longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion.  For the LORD is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who wait for Him! 

O people…....you will weep no more.  How gracious He will be when you cry for help!  As soon as He hears, He will answer you.  Although the LORD gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, He, your Teacher will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see Him. 

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you say, ‘This is the way; walk in it.’                      ~ Isaiah 30:18-21

Beautiful.  It sounds so easy.  But sometimes the choices are so big, the consequences so far-reaching……  We just want to be absolutely sure!  We do desire to follow God, to know His will, but just to “hear a voice,” which will probably not be audible, but will manifest itself as that “still small voice” coming up from within our souls…. That makes discerning our answer feel a little tricky sometimes….  We are tempted to ask God, “Can you write it on a billboard?  Could you send me a letter in the mail that has my ‘mission’ neatly typed out for me?  Or even like Mapquest – Lord, can you be ‘God-Quest’ and map my path all out for me, highlighted in yellow?”

Not exactly.  And yet….God does promise to tell us, to guide us, and assures us that we will know His voice if we are one of His.   Jesus says to us ~

‘I am the Good Shepherd; I know my sheep and My sheep know me – just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep.’        ~  John 10:14

But will we REALLY KNOW when it is Him speaking to us?  Well, does a mother know her child’s voice?  Can you recognize your spouse or your best friend within just a word or two on the phone?  And how do we get to that point of intimacy?  We spend time with them.  We study them, we get to know them.  We live life with them.  And that is what Jesus wants us to do with Him…..and then we WILL recognize His voice….from spending time in prayer with Him, from being immersed in His Word, and from personal experience of walking with Him each day.
 
 

The sheep listen to His voice.  He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out.  When He has brought out all his own, He goes on ahead of them, and His sheep follow Him because they know His voice.               ~  John 10:3-4

So lately I have been desperately needing direction from Him.  And yet sometimes He wants us to wait.  To learn patience.  For our faith to grow deeper.  Or maybe the timing just isn’t right for the answer yet.  We have to live in the “Not-Knowing” phase sometimes. 

And then…..a breakthrough finally comes….

This is what the LORD says, He who made the way through the sea, a path through the mighty waters.... –

‘Forget the former things.

Do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing new things!

Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.’

                                                                                                            ~ Isaiah 43:16, 18-19

I came across this Scripture just the other day.  Wow, this sounds so hopeful!  Like maybe the waiting time is almost over.  You see, I feel like I have been wandering in a desert wasteland these last months – of being slammed with crisis upon catastrophe, which ended in slinging me into a dark valley of uncertainty of what step to take next – the “not-knowing” time. 

Out of curiosity I did some research and discovered that the “Holmes and Rahe Life Stress Scale” ranks major stressful events with numerical values, based on the amount of upheaval and pain each one causes.  In the Holmes and Rahe chart, a “serious personal injury or illness” ranks right near the top, second only to death of a family member, divorce or imprisonment, and then “losing your job” is right below that…..  I know that many of you can totally relate, having also been trudging through your own valley or desert, or thrashing through the woods lost and disoriented, desperately needing to hear the Shepherd’s comforting voice to show you the way.

So, I understand how you feel.  This has been a difficult personal journey for me, and yet I have known without a doubt that every step of the way I have not traveled alone.  God has walked with me, carried me at times, and taught me so many wonderful things that I can say I am not even the same person I was at the end of 2010.  I have been in a classroom of faith these seven months, of being stretched to the limit, of learning crucial lessons like how to be thankful even in the midst of the crisis, how to trust God even when there seemed to be no hope, and how to forgive when the pain and bitterness threatened to poison me. 

God instructs us in the Isaiah passage above, “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past….”  And He promises, “I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” 

He also says this ~

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them.  I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.  These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.                 ~  Isaiah 42:16

So, what felt like a calamity to me for so long, has ended up as a discovery that this is an opportunity for God to “turn the darkness into light” and “make the rough places smooth.”  Or even to the extent of releasing me from a captivity of sorts – like this dove being freed from its cage.  God says He sent Jesus to ~

Bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness the prisoners.                                 ~  Isaiah 61:1

So what do we do when we are in the “not-knowing” stretch of time?  We pray.  We ask God for guidance and direction.  We cry.  We pray some more.  We listen.  And we wait.  And we trust that God knows our path and our destination, even when we can’t see it just yet. 

 And in the meantime, we learn about faith.   Because when it is time, when He says, “This is the way, walk in it,” we must be prepared to obey.   Then at that moment we could be released to the freedom to try something completely new in life, completely unthinkable in its scope and yet, if God leads us, then He will make it happen.   

Show me Your ways, O LORD, teach me Your paths; guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.                                                                                                   ~  Psalm 25:4-5

Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD?  He will instruct him in the way chosen for him.  He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land.

                                                                                                               ~  Psalm 25:12-13

Faith is in the Not-Knowing

There are times when we can describe the path of our life as “smooth sailing,” where our boat just floats along congenially, carried easily by gentle breezes.  Our life settles into a nice, manageable routine, our needs are being met, everything just seems to fall into place, and we feel in control, happy, and able to handle our day-in-and-day-out patterns.  The sailboat still rises up and down with the waves, and minor adjustments must be made to the sails or the rudder to keep the desired direction, but all in all the way is smooth.

Joyce Meyer, the international inspirational speaker, was in Africa recently and she described her experience of riding in a boat down the Zambezi River in Zimbabwe and how at a certain turn in the river the crew steered the vessel over to the shore to disembark at that point.  Joyce said that she didn’t understand at the time but soon realized that the expert guides, with their training and their intimate familiarity with the river, knew that if they had continued further, just around the bend they would have been greeted with THIS sight:



Victoria Falls, Zambezi River, Zimbabwe, Africa

Joyce’s point of her story was that God knows our path, He can see ahead of us – He knows the whole story, for that matter – and if we allow Him to guide us and then we follow His leading, He can protect us from unforeseen catastrophes ahead and steer us to safety. 

Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, Your right hand will hold me fast.                                 ~  Psalm 139:7-10

Absolutely true.  Very true.  Right up until the best plan for our life, for us to grow to be our strongest selves, sometimes is to walk THROUGH the actual catastrophe itself rather than be saved from it.   To sail into the very midst of the raging storm, for our dinghy to be tossed to and fro by powerful waves and blustering winds, for us to have to grip the rails for our very lives while our little boat does go flying right over the edge of the waterfall…..

Did God miss something in those times?  Was He distracted, too busy, asleep?  No way!

My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.  Indeed, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.    ~ Psalm 121:2, 4

But this January when I fell down the stairs at my home, broke my collarbone and had emergency surgery to remove a life-threatening blood clot from my fractured skull – why did God not protect me from that?  Then only two months after being in the hospital ICU, a second wave crashed across my life path when I lost my job at the church where I had worked faithfully for six years, cutting our income in half – why would God allow that?  My little raft truly had cascaded all the way over the waterfall!  And yet…..

Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls; all Your waves and breakers have swept over me……Why are you so downcast, O my soul?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.                                                                          ~ Psalm 42:7, 11

Waters flowed over my head;

I said, ‘I am cut off!’

I called on Your name, O Lord,

Out of the lowest pit.

You have heard my voice,

‘Do not hide Your ear from my prayer for relief, from my cry for help.’ You said, ‘Do not fear!’

O LORD, You took up my case;

You redeemed my life.

                                                                                                            ~ Lamentations 3:54-58

You see, God doesn’t guarantee that everything will always be perfect, smooth, easy, and the way we would want.  Just like as parents we don’t always say “yes” to our children’s requests, or jump in and fix every problem for them – we see that they sometimes need to learn lessons that will make them stronger. 

And in life when “the rug gets pulled out from under us,” or “life throws us a curve ball” sometimes that is the VERY PLACE where we can pick up the pieces and start a fresh adventure, or even just sweep the broken shards away, step out and try something completely new!  We can look forward and see our disaster as an opportunity rather than a setback, a wide-open field of possibilities rather than a pit of despair. 

Photo copyright zunazet at http://zunazet.caedes.net/

Recently I read an inspiring article called, Finding Joy in the Jolts of Life, by Phil Cooke.  Actually, that is the subtitle.  The title is even more explicit:  Hitting the Wall.  In the story the author talks of his experience of getting fired from his job at age 36 with a wife and two small children, and described that point in his life as “hitting a wall.”  And yet, he goes on to reveal this – “But looking back today, I can see the jolt of that experience was the best thing that could have ever happened.  Shortly afterward, we began the greatest journey of change we had ever experienced.”

So, regarding my own recent life “jolts,” for almost four months I have been seeking, searching, thinking, praying, waiting, asking about what to do with my life now.  Is this a turning point of opportunity for me?  Is there something wonderful, something totally different that I am supposed to do now?  What I can say is that I have dared to take tentative steps in a brand new direction, but the answer is not completely there yet.  And you may be in the very same boat in your life right now.   

So far, the current lesson for me in this whole experience has been FAITH.  As Joyce Meyer also says, “Faith is in the Not-Knowing.”  Faith is trusting God even when it doesn’t make sense, when we don’t know how in the world our situation can possibly work out.  Faith is trusting that God has a plan even if you have lost your job.  Faith is trusting that God will provide even when the numbers don’t add up to pay all the bills.  Faith is trusting that God will open a door at just the perfect moment and you will enter a whole new world of blessing and adventure. 

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

                 ~  Hebrews 11:1

I’m there.  I can feel it.  And if your boat also has plummeted down the waterfall, or you are having a struggle paddling upstream against a mighty current, or you feel you are riding the rapids in your life right now, God will be with you as well.  He promises.  Blessings are right around the bend.  But in the meantime, remember – faith is before you get to see what is around the bend.  Faith is in the not-knowing.

For the LORD God is a sun and shield.  The LORD gives grace and glory.  No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly.  Oh LORD of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in You!

                                                                                                                      ~ Psalm 84:11-12

Refreshment for the Soul

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes, its leaves are always green.  It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.               ~ Jeremiah 17:7-8

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures,  He leads me beside quiet waters,  He restores my soul. 

 ~  Psalm 23:1-3

 

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on His law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does he prospers.               

~  Psalm 1:1-3

The LORD says, ‘They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them.’  He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.

~   Isaiah 49:10

Because You are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings. 

 ~  Psalm 63:10

I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint. 

    ~  Jeremiah 31:25

Sometimes there is no need of other words.

Peace.