“I bow down before the King. I give you everything.”
I sang it with all my heart. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself bowing down before the King in heaven and giving Him my everything.
Then, my mind wandered to the things He has asked me to give Him.
He has asked me to give Him a story that makes no sense. He had repeatedly asked me to do things that seem to have no impact, asked me to obey commands that seemed to change nothing, and asked me to keep walking a road that made no earthly sense, that has all the earthly signs that tell you to turn and run, and yet He continually asked me to keep going.
It had cost me a lot. It has cost me countless hours of tears, heartaches, and many heartbreaks. Week upon week, I hoped this story will finally take a turn. I hoped and believed that the bend was just before me, and that a whole new field will open up before me.
Week upon week, my hopes were dashed.
From a human perspective, I should have stopped walking. Humanly speaking, my heart moved on. In my human understanding, it made absolutely no sense.
And yet, in the Spirit, He asked me to keep on walking. In the Spirit, He kept my heart in the story. In the Spirit, I believed that one day, it will all make sense.
The weeks turned into months, turned into years.
And somehow, I’m still walking on that very same road. Somehow, I’m still walking on a road on which people put up all the stop-, dead-end-, and do-not-enter-signs.
Because in the Spirit, my good Father asks me to not see what I see in the physical realms, but to look at the things of Heaven. To walk the road of the Father.
It feels that it has cost me everything. It has cost me hours of my life, many tissues, counselling sessions, and even friends.
And I am still walking. Somewhere, lost in the wilderness. Paths are long gone, and I’ve landed in the plain desert. There are no paths here. I look around, and I wonder how on earth I ended up here. And yet, I know exactly how: through obedience. Through surrender. Through bowing down before the King in worship.
It honestly feels like He has taken everything.
And truth is: He gets to. My life is His.
I know He didn’t do it harshly. He did it gently, lovingly. He did it as He held me all along the way, crying with me when I cried, and welcoming me back into His arms whenever I had decided that this road was simply too much for me to bear and run off. Whenever I decided that my everything is more than I can give.
I know He is right here with me in the confusion, the fog, the desert.
He is out here with me, in the wilderness, where there are no signs that point to the promises of God. And yet, I know, His promises are there. I know they hold true. He is faithful and true, and He keeps His promises.
I know that my good Father is not in the business of brokenness, but in the business of writing stories that far exceed my expectations.
He writes stories that we could never write ourselves.
He asks His people to walk around a city, instead of fighting it. He sends a man who struggles to speak in front of people to convince a king to let His people go. After promising Joseph that his brothers will bow to him, he is sold into slavery and sent into a dungeon. He chooses the least likely to be king, anoints him, and then has him run for his life for years and years.
He himself becomes human, lives a sinless life, and then takes our sins upon Himself. He can conquer dead, and yet He let Himself be crucified – dying the most horrible of deaths.
Many of the greatest stories the Lord has ever written make no earthly sense. They go beyond our human understanding.
Why? Because that is who He is. Because the very essence of who He is goes far beyond our understanding. His greatness, awesomeness, incredibleness, power, love, grace, …. He himself is more than we can ever think or imagine.
So, it makes only sense He writes stories we do not understand.
And so, these roads may not make sense. They may be painful. They may be daring. They may be incomprehensible for us.
I mean… What do you think the Israelites were thinking as they walked around Jericho? What do you think was the price Moses paid to lead His people? And how much courage did He have to muster up? How painful must Joseph’s path have been? And how hopeless must he have felt at times? How confused must David have been at times, questioning if He may have misunderstood something? How misunderstood must He have felt time and time again?
And lastly, even though He will always be the greatest and first: How painful is the road of Jesus, investing, ministering, walking, loving His disciples, His people, yes, all of us, and yet seeing us suffer, not understanding, running away, denying Him, being confused, not repenting, rejecting Him, and still He chose to die for all of us.
Words fail to describe the amount of emotions Jesus must have gone through, and probably is still feeling.
One thing we learn from all these stories: He writes the greatest stories, in ways we could never imagine, that often do not make sense, but they are always loving, and they lead to the greatest promises. They are His ways.
So here I am, still confused, unable to see the road, choosing to put my trust in Him.
And maybe, the miracle itself simply is that I am still walking. Maybe that is all I need to do. To just keep walking.
And as I do that, I will continue to give Him my everything.
Why? Because He truly deserves my everything, no matter the cost. Because my life is His. And because time and time again, He has proven that the things He gives are always so much greater than the things He asks us to release.
Until then, I will feed on His faithfulness. I will bow down to Him in worship. I will pour my oil over His feet.
Because I will always bow before my King.
