Taking the path less traveled never seems easy at the start. It is tough to shut out the world and all the attacks that are placed on you. To put on that brave face and continue forward. However, that path is also one that, when intended for your feet, will become more and more comfortable as you tread along.
In a little over two weeks I will be leaving for Alaska on a missionary program. I can be completely honest and tell you that I am very anxious and scared. The enemy has already began its attacks on me, using people that I love and that I let get close to me, to mess with my focus and try to get me to look down at this other path. Not the one that God has chosen for me. It took three straight hours of crying and snotting and talking it out with my mom to realize the attack that was being placed on me by the enemy. And I realized God has been telling me to be careful with the people I open up to and the things I say because the enemy will find a way to use that against me. Of course I am human and I choose to ignore what God has been telling me and the enemy reached through and got me. Hard. An attack on me has never hurt this bad, because satan used people I trusted and loved so much. I recognized and as soon as I did with help from my mom I prayed for God to take hold of this attack, take the burdens from my back and for Him to break the hold the enemy had on these people. I love these people dearly and now I know to listen to God and not to the world once again. I am learning, I'm not all knowing like these people made me out to be, I am naive and in no shape to face the enemy again. But I know God's got me in His hands, He has once again made my path known to me. I am going to preach the gospel, I'm being obedient to what He has asked me to do. So of course the attacks are going to come, but I have the shield of salvation and God will protect me, like He always does.
Through this journey that I am on I have had many encounters with attacks from the enemy-- that little voice telling me the path is much more difficult than the one I was previously walking on. The people who continually tell me I am going to fail, that I am false, that I am not worthy enough for God. But here's the thing: Would God put me on such an endeavor without His protection, if it did not cause me to put up a fight for His name for this great adventure He has put ahead of me? Look at it this way. Not a single hero ever went about saving a life without shedding a bit of sweat, blood, and tears. Imagine if Prince Phillip never had to chase down Rose and fight off the evil dragon to save her. Nothing about their tale would be a journey, but, instead, an ordinary, everyday love affair.
So what makes us think that our lives are not worthy for this path, any less of an adventure-packed, fight off a few dragons, awesome ending. God calls each of us to a different journey, to different place, to different people. Though different we are all doing His work, we are all furthering His Kingdom. Maybe you are in your hometown, in Africa, Alaska. Where ever you are doesn't make you any less than anyone else, if you are doing what God has asked you, you are on the right path. And if you are not, God will make that known. Just because someone has different gifts or talents or is in a different place than someone else, doesn't make them higher up on the "God-list" because God loves each one of us, He gave His life for all of us, and He calls all of us!
We all should be embarking on the path that is the most well-suited beneath our feet. The one that God has called us to. Yes, there are bound to be a few pebbles that get stuck in our shoes. But wouldn't you rather bend over, remove them, and continue one, than live your life in the darkness, staring down that path, knowing that you never put on your shoes at all. As the body of Christ we have this Unity in the Spirit. In Ephesians Paul writes urging his brothers to live a life worthy of the calling they have received. "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit- just as you were called to one hope when you were called- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." It's hard to keep the unity, people are messy. We have pride, lust, we fall, we sin, and we can never admit when we are wrong. But God's grace and love covers us all. He is calling us to be the kind of person who lays themselves down and everything they hold onto down at the foot of His cross, and rise up taking their cross and following Him, completely and utterly surrendered.
To be this kind of person- the kind who selflessly serves- takes everything a person has. It is difficult. It is demanding. And we often find ourselves going against the flow of those around us. We find ourselves getting attacked by people we trust, by people we don't even know, by anything the enemy can use against us. Because satan knows where we are going, and what we are going to be doing. The enemy doesn't want us to further God's Kingdom and he is not going to stand by and say "Oh go ahead and serve God, I don't have a problem with it." he is going to attack us.
The way is narrow. Jesus tells us all the way is narrow. And many people don't recognize that, very few people in our world are offering anything worth dying for. Most of the messages we receive are about how to make life easier. The call that Jesus places on our lives goes a completely different direction than the call of this world. His call is about making our lives more difficult. It is going out of our way to be more generous and disciplined and love and free. It is refusing to escape and become numb to and check out of this broken, fractured world.
In this call we have to be completely honest, especially to friends. It's high demands, the cost are high, which is what is so appealing about Jesus- his vision for lives takes everything we have. In John 6 Jesus gives a teaching that is so hard to swallow, everybody but a few leave Him. He is constantly trying to find out who really wants it. And so He keeps pushing and prodding and question and putting it out there until some leave and the ones who truly desire this life stay. You never find Him chasing after someone, forcing them, or trying to convince them that He is the way. He lets the people come to Him, He waits, He is patient.
This is what we are all dying for- something that demands we step up and become better, more focused people. Something that calls out the greatness that we hope is somewhere inside of us. We can't force the situation on anyone, we can't be impatient. We have to wait for God to call us to where He wants us to go, to what He wants us to do.
And these attacks, I know they will get heavier and harder to bear, but the thing is God has me in His hands and He protects me. So all I have to say is "Bring it on, because God will overcome any attack the enemy throws at me." God gets the glory for anything and everything I do, because He placed this call on my life. There is no other way for me to live. I can never go back to the way it was, because I now know the truth. I love every person that the enemy is using to attack me, I give them up to God, because He has all control. My life is His and whatever happens, I know God is and will always be, forever and ever with me.
In Christ...
His and yours
Cami
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