the journey of faith

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Have you ever viewed your life in terms of “milestones” or “destinations“??

I used to think about my life like a timeline with markers indicating when I wanted certain events to happen. Have you ever thought the same?? As my life unfolded I quickly found out that things don’t turn out quite as I’d envisioned and I was left thinking “what now?”

About two years ago I was at a crossroads in my life, asking the Lord for wisdom and direction on which way to go. My natural instinct, when placed in a circumstance that involves risk, is to pick the safer, more comfortable option. The weight of walking into something that could end badly (or even good!) is sometimes too great a risk and I’d rather stay on comfortable & familiar ground.

But, when the Lord asks you to step out in faith, His call keeps tugging at your heart and the most important thing you can decide to do is obey, trust, and follow His voice.

So, regarding this particular crossroads, He gave me direction and peace to move forward, but didn’t tell me what the outcome would be. He just told me to take the first step and He would reveal the next step in His timing. So often, I want to know the next 20+ steps and what the destination will be. I want to be able to weigh the risk-to-benefit ratio and determine if it’s worth it.

But that’s not how faith works. . .

Faith is trusting God to lead, guide, and direct your steps – even when you can’t see where it’ll lead. Faith is resting in Jesus because HE knows the outcome, so I don’t have to.

What He has shown me, time and time again, is that He is more concerned with the PROCESS than the destination. When we follow the Lord and things don’t happen as we expected we can feel betrayed, lost, and confused. But it is often in those very situations of loss, sorrow, and pain that our faith grows the most and we learn to depend on Jesus more.

The act of trusting Jesus and walking by faith IS the goal. He desires everything we walk THRU to increase our faith and deepen our walk with Him. So, when my life starts to take on a different trajectory than I had envisioned, I can be expectant and hopeful — because He is in control of the story, not me. For a long-time I simply wanted to check things off the ” life bucket-list” that I had created in my mind, the list with: ☐ graduate college ☐ get my dream job ☐ get married ☐ travel ☐ buy a house ☐ have kids, etc. listed. In my mind I had created that list because I saw that people typically measure “success” by those achievements. So, when I didn’t accomplish those things when I had expected to, I was left feeling like I had failed and was missing out.

But I’ve come to learn that if God were to give us a “bucket-list,” I think it would simply read:

☐ walk by faith

So, no matter the job I have, whether or not I have a college degree, am married, have children, or travel — I can ask myself: “am I walking by faith and trusting God where I am today?” And, if walking by faith does lead to the things I had desired, then Jesus will also use those to mature and deepen my faith! Either way He’s is growing faith in me. My hope is no longer in an outcome and my faith is no longer reliant on getting what I want.

In the same way, when things come into our lives that we never would’ve asked for — heartbreak, unexpected tragedy, loss, betrayal, trials — we have the assurance that God is working amidst the pain to draw us closer to Himself, even if we can’t see it at first, or on this side of eternity; He does not waste our pain.

No matter where in life you find yourself; whether it’s where you wanted to be, or somewhere you never imagined you would be, may we desire God’s will (not our own!) for our lives. When we keep our eyes on Him and follow His leading, even if the situation ends differently than you would’ve hoped, He is glorified.

When the timeline of your life doesn’t follow what you had in mind, you can trust that God is working behind the scenes, writing a story so much better than you could’ve created yourself. And it’ll be so much better than the timeline you had for yourself.

I know it is h-a-r-d to let go of expectations and release certain desires to the Lord but we can rest knowing that He’s a much better Author than we’ll ever be.

It leaves me thinking: in the end, if I check everything off my “bucket-list” but have no faith to show for it, what will I have really accomplished of true value??

“And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?”
-Matthew 16:26 (NLT)