I’m starting to realize to an even
greater degree that I’m on this long journey with God. Its a road I
started down many years ago and I thought i’d be along a lot farther
than I am now…but I I’m started to enjoy the pace, and the
scenery. It’s coming alive to me now…He’s coming alive to me in
new ways…and its slowly destroying what was me and its
enjoyable/painfully wonderful.
Though I know many times in my life I
have wondered where God was in the mist of my circumstances. Other
times I’ve just felt an emptiness as if something was missing. But I
feel many Christian spend their time in this in between limbo. Many
youth pastors would call it the valley between the peaks, or the dips
in the roller coaster but I’m a little tired of that analogy. Many
times I have felt I wanted more of God but had no idea how to get it,
was unwilling to give the time, or couldn’t fight off the apathy. I
don’t know if you feel this way…but my guess is you can relate. So
I’ve been asking God what that is all about. And while I do believe
that there are seasons of our lives where God is quieter, I know that
He is always pursuing us. That’s the theme of the bible. A unfaithful
people being pursued by a faithful God.
Then I started reading this book,
Hinds’ feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard , and its an
allegory about a girl named Much-Afraid and her long journey with
the Shepard to the Higher Places. She starts in the valley of
Humiliation with her relatives of Fear. She allows the Shepard to
lead her out of there and start the long journey thorough deserts,
beautiful valleys, shores of loneliness, and mountains of injury, and
forests of dangers and tribulation. She was promised to reach the
Higher Places where she will know perfect love and be given a new
name.. Much-Afraid comes to a place in the journey where she is on
the borderland of the High Places and is constantly surrounded by
mist. Every once in a while the mist breaks and she can see the peaks
of the Higher Places, but she often struggles during the journey and
wonders if the Shepard will keep His promise to lead her to the
Higher places.
On one such occasion the Shepherd said
to Much-Afraid, ” When you continue your journey there may be much
mist and cloud. Perhaps it may even seem as though everything you
have seen here of the High Places was just a dream, or the work of
your own imagination. But you have seen reality and the mist which
seems to swallow it up is the illusion. Believe steadfastly in what
you have seen. Even if the way up to the High Places appears to be
obscured and you are led to doubt whether you are following the right
path, remember the promise, ‘Thine ears shall hear a word behind
thee, saying, This is the way ,walk ye in it, when ye turn to the
right hand and when ye turn to the left,’ Always go froward along the
path of obedience as far as yo know it until I intervene, even if it
seems to be leading you where you fear I could never mean you go.
Remember, Much-Afraid, what you have seen before the mist blotted it
out. Never doubt the High Places are there, towering up above you,
and be quite sure that whatever happens I mean to bring you up there
exactly as I have promised.”
Its was quite surprising how much I
feel I could relate with this character. Often I feel like I must be
on the wrong path or even fear my faith is just something I’ve made
up it my head. But God is beckoning me to more. So when I can’t see,
when I’m weary from the journey, and when I’d rather listen to
bitterness, pride, or self-pity, I remember the words of my God. He
who has begun a good work within me will see it through until
completion.(Phil 1:6)
And when I’m in the valley of loss,
desert, or shores of loneliness I will remember that the Shepard is
there. He’s refining me. He is teaching me. He is asking me to rely
on Him. He is calling out to me…
Come up Higher my Beloved One…
There
is so much more for you to see…
