If you would rather hear a verbal version of this, I had the chance to share at a recent worship night! You can check out the audio from that night here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avedUoHfM3s
Warning: The first minute is a bit louder! You will catch the tail end of a couple hundred people screaming ‘No Longer Slaves’ 🙂
Now to the blog! I simply want to share something that the Lord has been teaching me, for quite a while now. It is a word that led me to the World Race, and it is a word that has only grown since saying “yes” to the World Race. The word is that saying “yes” to God’s call will always lead you through uncertainty.
The starting place for this is that faith and doubt are not opposites, biblically. Faith and sight are opposites. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that “we walk by faith, not by sight”. Hebrews 11 tells us that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen”. Faith is not absence of doubt. Faith is a willingness to stand on a promise, even when circumstances provide no evidence for doing so. To give an example: Sailing across a perfectly calm sea isn’t faithful. It is simply logical. On the other hand, sailing across a stormy sea because God promised to meet you on the other side (Matthew 14 or Mark 6) is faithful. A decision of faith actually requires uncertainty to be present; otherwise, you aren’t standing on anything.
Luke 1 paints this picture beautifully. We see back to back passages of Zechariah being foretold about John the Baptist’s birth and Mary being foretold about Jesus’ birth. Mary and Zechariah have responses that seem almost identical. Yet, Mary leaves a faithful servant while Zechariah leaves rebuked (he is made mute for 9 months… the entire pregnancy). On the surface it seems really confusing. Mary and Zechariah both asked “how”. Like what the heck?
But when we look a little deeper, we see a HUGE difference in their questions. Mary asked, “how will this be, since I am a virgin?”. She is asking how this is possible. The angel responds by telling her, “the Holy Spirit will come upon you”. Wow thanks, that really cleared it up *sarcasm*… that response answered absolutely nothing logically. However, Mary accepts that she isn’t getting logical answers. She declares that she is the Lord’s servant and walks into the uncertainty. Now Zechariah responds by asking, “how can I be SURE of this”. Zechariah wants all of the answers. He wants certainty and proof. For that, Zechariah is rebuked.
See the thing about when God speaks is that He will not give us all of the logical answers. The Father lovingly/gently invites our questions and our wrestling (see Jacob in Genesis 32). He isn’t scared or intimidated by any of our questions. But in those questions, we have to be okay with the fact that we are not going to get perfectly logical answers. His invitation is to step through the uncertainty and trust Him.
Gideon had an army of 32,000 and God said go to war with 300 (Judges 7). Joshua walked around Jericho for 7 days and expected the walls to just magically fall at the end (Joshua 6). Moses walked back into Egypt, after 40 years, as a murderer and coward… and his only explanation was “I am who I am sent me” (Exodus 3). On and on and on.
In Matthew 3, we see John the Baptist prophesying about Jesus. John says, “I baptize with water, but after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire”. Translation: when Jesus shows up, everything is going to go down. John thought that Jesus was going to restore and flip everything on its head instantly. But then we fast-forward to Matthew 11. John is in prison (about to be beheaded) and he sends a messenger to Jesus to ask Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?” John doubts EVERYTHING. Jesus tells the messenger to go back to John and say, “The blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor”. Jesus tells John what He IS doing, not what John thought Jesus was going to do.
We so easily put boxes around God. We think we know what He should do. But here is the thing: Following God isn’t done on our terms. We don’t get to lead. He does. So often His invitation is, “Are you willing to trust Me? Do you really believe that My thoughts/ways are higher (Isaiah 55)? Will you follow Me even if following Me doesn’t look how you thought it might? Will you follow Me even if it doesn’t make sense and leads you through dark, scary, uncertain circumstances?” And our “yes” to that is not figuring out all of the answers and making a plan. Our “yes” to that is simply being okay with “I. Don’t. Know. All. Of. The. Answers… but here is what I do know: He is GOOD and He is WORTHY”.
We don’t have to jump through these theological hoops to try and make everything make sense. Faith is being willing to stand on all of those questions. Our “yes” is looking at the uncertainty and saying, “I am in. Even if it doesn’t make sense. Even if nobody goes with me.” And that answer is COSTLY! We are not called to easy, safe, comfortable lives. We are called to lives of risk and investment (see my first blog post for the full explanation of that in Matthew 25 and Luke 14).
Briefly, it is incredibly lazy and wrong to live a life that says, “Well God is sovereign… so if He is going to do something in my life, He is going to make it happen… I’m just going to sit back and do nothing”. God opens doors in our lives, but we have to be willing to walk through them. The 3 men in Luke 14 were invited to the feast (relationship with the Father), but they missed it because they were too distracted by normal, easy, safe, comfortable things. They weren’t living in crazy opposition to the Lord, they were simply unwilling to let go of their plans.
Following Jesus will cost you EVERYTHING. Your plans. Your dreams. The way you spend time. The way you spend money. Your friendships. Your relationships. Your “fitting in” and looking “normal”. There is no conditional following Jesus. 95% in is no different than 0% in. It is ALL or nothing.
And so the question becomes: How do you respond to His invitation that leads you through uncertainty? You ARE invited. The 3 men in Luke 14 were invited. But the invitation is not what determines if you get to enter the feast. Your response to His invitation to step through uncertainty, and give Him ALL of you, is what determines if you enter the feast.
Jesus paid for all of me and all of you. When He hung on that cross, God didn’t just forgive or forget our sin. Jesus bore the full weight of it. He bought our freedom. He paid for ALL of us. The cross also wasn’t somehow easier for Him because He was God in the flesh. The bible tells us that the thing that allowed Jesus to endure was the joy set before Him (Hebrews 12). That joy was us! Our hearts. Our freedom. Our access into relationship with the Father. Jesus didn’t die so we could just live more morale lives. Jesus didn’t die so we could just know about Him. Jesus died so that we could KNOW Him intimately. He died to invite us into FREEDOM and into giving Him everything. And so to withhold anything from Him is to go to war with Him. My simple advice would be this: Don’t go to war with Jesus.
But like I said, stepping into freedom will cost you your plans and your dreams. I am reminded of a story from when I was something like 8 years old (my sister can correct the exact age and trip). My parents woke me up real early one morning with the surprise that we were going to Florida (I think Disney). I remember sitting in that bed and crying because I was going to miss show and tell at school. Now, I wasn’t crying because what my parents were offering was worse than what I had. I was crying because we all have this tendency to cling so closely to what we have… even when the Father comes along with something SO much better.
The call for us is to LET GO of our plans and our control. The call is to scrap those plans because the Father has a better one, if we would just say “yes”. Getting there requires us to lay down the need to be understood. Getting there requires us to lay down the need to have the approval of man. People will think you are crazy if you say “yes” to following the Lord’s call on your life. People will try and convince you that if God really loved you, He would never touch your dreams… He would know better than to do that… those are your dreams and you should hold on to that 5%. But let me tell you, God will touch those dreams. God’s heart is not to make your dreams become a reality. His heart is to make His dream become a reality in you… no matter where He has to lead you in that process.
Story time. There was a group of people in the early 1700s named the Moravians. These people prayed for 100 years straight… non-stop (they had hour long shifts). During this time period, they found out about a slave owner who had 2000 slaves on an island. This slave owner wouldn’t let anyone visit the island. So, two Moravian boys devised a plan. These two 20-year-old boys sold themselves into a lifetime of slavery just to have the opportunity to share the Gospel with the slaves who otherwise never would have had the chance to hear the Good News. The day came for these two boys to leave, and I imagine their friends and family were there… crying and trying to talk them out of it. These two boys stepped onto their boat, started to drift out into the ocean, linked arms, turned back towards shore, and shouted back towards their loved ones. The last thing that they said was, “let the lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering”.
Please know that there is NO other reason to give ALL of yourself to Jesus other than the fact that He is WORTHY. He paid for all of me, and you, when He hung on the cross. He bore it ALL. Past. Present. Future. He cried, “It. Is. Finished.” The promise in saying “yes” to giving Jesus everything is not that life with be filled with peachy circumstances. The promise is that He will go with us!
Moses comes with questions in Exodus 3. He asks, “Who am I?”. God responds by saying Yod-Hei-Vav-Hei… Yahweh. I am who I am, and I will go with you. God didn’t just dodge Moses’ question because there was a better question to ask. God answered Moses’ question by defining him as the one who God goes with. The only thing that will ever qualify us, or our “yes” of being 100% in, is that God goes with us.
The question for us is are we willing to listen and respond? And that starts with listening. Exodus 3 tells us very specifically that God started speaking after Moses turned aside to look at the bush. For context, brush fires were incredibly common in the part of the world where Moses lived. It wasn’t something crazy. Moses noticed God’s presence amidst the normal. God doesn’t scream over everything else in our lives. He comes in a still, small whisper (1 Kings 19). He does so because it requires us to actually pay attention and engage with Him. It requires us to KNOW Him and to KNOW His voice.
And we can come up with an endless amount of excuses. So many people will miss the call of God on their lives, just like those 3 men in Luke 14. So many people will miss the feast (eternal relationship with the Father) because we are too distracted by normal, comfortable, easy things. We can claim to be busy. We can say no to laying hands on, and praying over, a stranger because it is too weird or inconvenient. We can say no to sharing the Gospel with a friend because it might ruin the friendship or make things awkward… so instead we choose to just be “nice” and maybe one day they’ll ask us why. But let me tell you that in my life that excuse has really meant this… I don’t really believe that God loves me, so I need to make sure that everyone else around me does. There is NO reason to withhold sharing Jesus. He is GOOD and He is WORTHY of ALL of us.
In the end, I think obedience is WAY simpler than we think it is. We so easily think obedience comes with CRAZY and obvious circumstances. But so often, obedience simply looks like Peter in John 6. Jesus comes and asks Peter if he will leave like everyone else. He comes to us with the question of, “Are you willing to trust Me? Even if it costs you everything? Even if it is uncertain? Even if it makes no sense? Even if nobody goes with you?”. And Peter’s response isn’t something crazy. Peter literally says, “Where else would I go, Lord?”… I don’t have any other options. Everything else I have run to is empty and broken. So my answer is “yes”… no matter what it costs me, no matter where it takes me, no matter how dark or scary it is, no matter if I have to go alone… my answer is “yes” because you are GOOD and WORTHY of ALL of me… not just my convenience, not just the parts that are easy to give, not just my Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights… You are worth something as small as my stopping at Walmart to pray for the cashier… You are worth EVERYTHING.
Please hear that it is not enough to just talk about Jesus. We are told that MANY will come on the final day confessing Lord, Lord… but they will be met with a response from God that is, “depart from Me, I never knew you” (Matthew 7). It is not enough to just know about Jesus and have an academic understanding of who He is. If we do not KNOW Him… If we cannot hear His voice… ALL is lost.
His invitation into freedom is there. That invitation will take you through uncertainty. That invitation will cost you EVERYTHING. But let me tell you, He is SO WORTH it… and He will lead you into intimacy that is so far beyond your wildest dreams. You don’t need all of the answers to say “yes” to where He is calling you. The only answer that you need is, “because God said so”. Patience isn’t sitting around and waiting for God to move in area A. Patience is choosing to see the burning bush… to see where God is moving… to join Him in area B, while still hoping He moves in area A… but to trust Him and join Him in area B, even if He never moves in are A.
When all is said and done, we are accountable to ONE person. What will you say on that day? How will you respond to His invitation to join Him where He is moving? Because He is moving, and He is inviting you through uncertainty.
I have no idea what that looks like for you. That meant saying “yes” to World Race for me. I do know that His invitation will lead you through risk, discomfort, uncertainty, and scary circumstances. I do know that His invitation will not be easy and safe. I do know that His invitation will cost you. I do know that His invitation will cause you to lay down ALL control. I do know that His invitation is not going to follow your perfect plans and convenience. But I do also know that He is so GOOD and WORTHY.
So, how will you respond to His invitation to listen, respond, choose freedom, and say “yes” unconditionally? Is the cross enough for you to decide once and for all that He is GOOD, that He is worthy, that He is who He says He is, and that you are who He says you are? Because there will never be greater evidence than the cross. He IS moving, right now. What is your answer going to be? Will you join Him? Will you let go of control and let Him lead EVERY area of life?
