Photo by Karsten Würth (@inf1783) on Unsplash
Have you ever wondered about the many paths you have taken in life?
Have you even considered their volume?
By the time we are twenty, there are countless sidewalks, dirt paths, parking lots, grassy fields, beaches, and unknown deer trails we have followed, without consideration for what it took to cut that path or even who will will follow after. In times I have spent in large American cities, there is a tremendous volume of people I watch going in front of me. I have stopped at coffee shops to watch the unending flow of people to follow in my wake.
Sometimes in life we march forward with a plan and a planned out destination.
Sometimes we wander because we need to feel movement without a terminus in mind.
On one visit to New York City, I was so overwhelmed by the stricture of the walking methods of the city that I found my way to Central Park and reveled in the wander-ful nature of the park. It was like jumping into a cool pool on an overwhelming hot day.
Journeying has consequences, though. Every step we take brings us away from something and closer to something else. Metaphysically, we are moving toward our ultimate destinations. Some of us have not chosen a destination, and in that apathy chosen a less-than-stellar place to arrive. Others have chosen places of our preference. We know the path inasmuch as it is revealed to us.
Some, in the mystic religions, believe they are moving toward a great unknowable nothing.
Some, in religions of the book, believe we are moving toward a great ungraspable big someone.
For me, personally, I believe that choice to choice, we move toward or away from God. Some choices come across as benign, unless of course, we are working on obedience in the small things. And then our choices are huge. It can even come down to your tooth brushing.
The thing is, when we grasp that everything we do has some sort of consequence, we can let that horrify us into some sort of inaction and immobility. Or we can inspect to whom we seek to send our obedience. If the God we seek to obey is tyrannical and cruel, we should most definitely cower as we seek to, by our own power, please Him, and ultimately fail.
Or we can inspect His actual character and know that He loves us and is walking through the journey toward perfection with us.
You make it easy to love You
You are good and You are kind
You bring joy into my life
You make it easy to trust You
You have never left my side. You’ve been faithful ev’ry time [1]
So as we sing to God that His character makes His path a pleasant one and one that we can trust, it means that while pursuing Him down the life of unique and adventuresome steps it takes to reach Him that we can run and not simply feel our way toward Him, blindly groping. We can truly follow Him anywhere, even to places that are truly dangerous and may attempt to take what we have from us.
Wherever You lead me, whatever it costs me
All I want is You, Jesus, all I want is You [2]
And imagine as we follow our Abba Father, God of our infancy and protector of our lives that we come upon a field of battle where the war He wages is on our behalf. Imagine your greatest fear suddenly set before you and disempowered all at once. Imagine your boogey monster, whether it be a man, a woman, yourself, failure, success, choices, loss, grief, or misery standing in front of you while it is summarily stripped of all power by God.
What is the effect of following your God to the defeat of your enemy? A hundred nights without sleep suddenly collide with the God who took one out of seven days of creation to perfect the nap.
Peace. Bring it all to peace. The storms surrounding me
Let it break at Your name
Still. Call the sea to still. The rage in me to still.
Every wave at Your name.
Jesus, Jesus, You make the darkness tremble
Jesus, Jesus You silence fear [3]
Truly, in the moment of His triumph, let us approach as people who practice worship at all times so that we may worship Him in His victory and not just stand in stunned stupid silence.
Breathe, call these bones to live. Call these lungs to sing
Once Again, I will praise…
Your name is a light that the shadows can’t deny
Your name cannot be overcome
Your name is alive, forever lifted high
Your name cannot be overcome [4]
And in that moment, let us lift up His name as Lord and King. Let us make the people who surround us ready to worship Him too.
Praise to the Lord, the almighty, the King of creation!
O, my soul, praise Him, for He is thy health and salvation!
All ye who hear, now to His temple draw near;
Join me in glad adoration [5]
And as we gaze on the King of all, we see in Jesus the Christ the juxtaposition of the crown of thorns on the one Great King. We see Him kneel to wash our feet as we kneel to worship only Him. We see Him adorned with our sins, now clothed in the great majesty and great robe of power in the end of time and in forever now. We feel his words, breathed with his last breath, “it is finished” as the genesis of our awakening and our call to life.
By Your spirit I will rise from the ashes of defeat
The resurrected King is resurrecting me
In Your name I come alive to declare Your victory
The resurrected King is resurrecting me [6]
A lot can come from walking a path. Let’s walk today and see where God will lead us.
- Brett Younker, Jason Ingram, Kristian Stanfill, and Phil Wickam, “Follow You Anywhere2019 Kristian Stanfill Publishing Designee
sixsteps Music, worshiptogether.com songs, Fellow Ships Music, So Essential Tunes, Phil Wickham Music, Simply Global Songs, Sing My Songs. CCLI# 7123196 - Ibid.
- Andres Figueroa, Hank Bentley, Mariah Mcmanus, Mia Fieldes, “Tremble” 2016 All Essential Music, Be Essential Songs, Bentley Street Songs, Mosaic LA Music, Mosaic MSC Music, Upside Down Under. CCLI# 7065049
- Ibid.
- Joachim Neander, “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty,” 1680, public domain
- Chris Brown, Mack Brock, Matthew Ntele, Steven Furtick, Wade Joye, “Resurrecting,” 2015 Music by Elevation Worship Publishing. CCLI# 7051507
Love, Them 