Stepping...or running...out in faith...

...do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.--Philippians 4:6-7

This is the path that I ran on the other morning. It is just a wooded path—the same kind I have run on before. I know how to run, and I am familiar with gravel and trees. It seems straightforward enough to go running.

I’ve been down so many wooded paths by now, however, that they all start looking the same—and there’s the problem. It is comforting to be surrounded by trees…. But the setting is so familiar that they all start looking alike, and I am not quite sure where I turned. Gravel is plain and commonplace, but if I have never run on this path before, I have no idea where it leads. It could be incredibly long, or just a quarter mile. If I keep running, I have no clue how long I will have to run until I reach the end. If it begins to rain on the path, I don’t know how much farther I will have to go until I reach shelter, or what that shelter will even be, if there is any at all. I generally can tell what direction I’m going in relation to where I started; but whether or not I will get back there is another story.

This first week, my life in the DC area has already begun to look like this path: the familiarity of woods and running, coupled with the terror of not knowing what is just around the corner, and having none of my little everyday comforts on a strange road—just myself and my shoes. It’s like looking at your face in a spoon: everything looks the same, only it’s upside-down.

Granted, I have lots of family here, and I am living with my great-aunt and uncle. But I live in the suburbs, a far ways out, and that makes for a long commute.

That has stressed me out more than anything: the logistics of getting from one place to another. There are about a million different ways to get to anywhere around here, and they all take different times and different routes according to the time of day or week or month or year, so it is really just a lot to take in. Take into that the fact that many people I have spoken with who live in the city itself have looked at me funny (literally) when I told them where I am living, like I am some kind of idiot.

I am unaccustomed to stress; I don’t often do it, to be honest. After I’ve been submerged in my little Christian hippie hidey-hole all summer (my parents’ house), where everything is about and for and through and around and inside God, this city is a bit of a shock to my senses.

I didn’t really prepare for that, because I didn’t spend this summer thinking that far ahead. I was busy tending the home fires, and learning to sit at Jesus’ feet. Now the world is coming at me, slapping me in the face like a cold, smelly updraft from the city sewer.

I think the issue goes deeper even than logistics.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. –James 1:22-24

That’s really what I have feared: becoming that person, a person who thinks she is receiving the implanted word (verse 21, just above), but then gets on the Metro and gets consumed by the day’s “civilian pursuits” (2 Timothy 2:4). A person who has such a long commute and such a brain-absorbing job that she never makes enough time to talk to Jesus.

I don’t want to become entangled in civilian pursuits. I would rather be tucked away in my little hole. I just don’t like to be bothered with all that stuff…you know, daily life.

Yesterday afternoon, after reading the employee handbook and faxing my paperwork and trying to plan this commute thing, I had a moment when I honestly thought, “Do I have to do this? Father…can I go home now? Jesus…Can I be excused?”

I am very much a Peter. “Cool!! I wanna walk on water!! Let me try! Oooh, oooh, pick me, Jesus!....Wait…hold on…aaaahhh, what am I doing??? I’m sinking! Help!!” (Matthew 14). Or: “I will NEVER deny you, Jesus! We’re bros!” …[less than 24 hours later]… “I do not know that man” (Matthew 26).

Needless to say, I can be a bit, um… wishy-washy. (Although I prefer the term “cautious.” It sounds better.) In my natural state, I am introverted and love-lazy, and I would rather operate in the imaginary realm of adventures instead of having one for real.

But my spiritual self is different from my natural self. My spiritual self is the first one to accept adventure, and seek it out gladly. Which makes for an interesting contrast in a high-pressure situation. Even though I will keep going, my natural self might wake up and hyperventilate a few times on the way…forgetting that, spiritually, this path is one I have chosen. I wanted to go running.

As much as I have grumbled internally over the past few days (what happened to that verse about “do all things without grumbling”?), I asked to be here. I asked for adventure, for a place to serve the Lord, to not be afraid to go where He calls me. I did not realize that I, a little stranger who is set apart by blood covenant from the alien planet on which she has landed, would fall face-first into “the world.” And several times over the last few days, I have wanted to retrace my steps and go back the way I came.

But it’s too late. I’m already on the path, and I don’t know how I got here. I only know the general direction I need to go, so I am going to have to keep running until I find my way back around.

I have thought to myself, how can I ever, ever love this city? How can I ever take it into the possession of the One who called me to it? (Deuteronomy 1:8).

How can I go and claim a place for God if I don’t even want to be there?

I read Isaiah 49 the other day. (Thank you, Jesus Calling.) It is widely accepted that this chapter is about Jesus.

I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.—verse 6

Someone has to carry the word, right?...And I did kind of volunteer….

Hop down a few verses:

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.—verses 15-18

I don’t know much about all those builders and destroyers and stuff, but I do know that God can no more forget about us than a mother can forget about a nursing child. He is full of milk for us—He longs to give it to us, the helpless babies who need to be nourished. And Jesus binds us on Himself like a bride binds on ornaments. Not the masculine, grim-faced God that people often imagine, huh?

You know what’s cool about that?

Jesus is not the jewel in my crown. He is not something I put on. I am the diamond that He wears. Once again, I am not the point here. He is. And yet, I still get to be beautiful.

Last night I talked to my mom and my brother, and they really helped me out. My brother, twenty years old though he is, just said, “You’re stepping out in faith. God has your back in this adventure.”

He’s right. I asked for an opportunity to step out in faith, and He has given it to me. He has bound me on. He has everything worked out. I can just see Him up there shaking His head, saying, “If you would just calm down and stop striving for a minute, I will show you how I have worked all this out already, daughter.”

So, last night, I got out my guitar and played a little worship, and I gave it all to Him. All my commuting, all my living situation(s), my new church (yet to be found), my new friends (also…yet to be found), my training, my coworkers—every last thing.  I needed that reminder from my brother (who is not just a natural brother, but a spiritual brother as well) that when you step out in faith, God has your back “in this adventure.”

I slept a lot better after that.

Then this morning, I hit up James chapter 2—“faith without works is dead.” For an example of works, James uses the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac—not exactly a “good deed,” or a “work” that would be approved by the little old ladies in Sunday school. But Abraham knew God had given him this son; he believed God when He said that his line would continue through Isaac—even if that meant He had to raise Isaac from the dead. “Works,” then, are acts of faith—not just saying you believe that God will protect you in the fire, but actually walking into it.

I think I’ve got a big toe in right now—stepping out in faith.

I know people around here think I’m naïve. They don’t say so, not in so many words. But I can tell by their faces. They see my smile and my attitude, my warm love, and they really think I don’t know anything about the world. They probably think I’ve never watched the news, that I’m a sheltered youngster with a country accent who ain’t seen much of the world.

But I’m not naïve. I just know who has my back.

The Lord of the universe has engraved me on the palms of His hands, and it is His love that they see in me, if they see any. The devil wants to steal that from me. But you know what? I am keeping my eyes on the back of Jesus’ head, because I am following right behind Him. The last thing you ought to do after you follow someone into the wilderness is turn around and start trying to find your way yourself, right?

I may have my eyes wide open and an eyebrow raised, but I’m getting my feet shod with the gospel of peace (Ephesians 5), and I know what direction I am going, even if I don’t know how to get there. Praise the Lord, that we are able to enter His rest, even while we’re running!