Following Jesus – Changing directions

Following Jesus – Changing directions
The direction of our life can also be called our “order”. When we get up each day and know what we ought to do and how we ought to do that, we feel order and feel like we have direction. Yet in life, many times we are called by God to change the direction we are going. This change in direction is not a diversion from following Him. In fact it is one way He works in the world so that we continue to follow Him rather than just trust in our own understanding.

Yet changing the order of our daily life often brings with it insecurity and thus an aversion to change. We enjoy the confidence of doing what we have been doing. Even if we know we are not getting enough done or if we are avoiding some important aspects of our life, just having the internal comfort is often is enough to keep us from doing different things.

So now in my life is a call of God to go a different direction. This new order will require that I work through the security of where I am and the insecurity of what I will be going. This in itself is growth and an increasing in my faith in God. What makes this difficult is that I am on the same path but now walking on the path in a different way. As the “what I am doing” of daily life changes, it is tempting to evaluate by what I was called to do in the past. I must prepare myself to love those who will want to relate to the Rod of the past and try to get me “back there” so that they know how to relate to me and how I integrate into their life and calling. This pressure of relationship often brings depression as we who have not figured everything out ourselves feel pressure to explain it to others. We get confused.

The pressure, the relationships, the insecurity are all a part of God’s plan for us. We are growing, breaking into new things, advancing. Have you ever had someone tell you that they were going to the next level but nothing changed? That is because while we may be called to go to the next level actually going there is not so much about what is around us, but about our internal transformation.

The path of life is not an interstate; it is a narrow way across a great wilderness.