Embrace Your Path

The path through the woods meanders back in the dusky light.  I’m not quite sure where it leads to. I see it almost every morning as I walk and I pass it but this morning it captivates, beckons mysteriously.  I don’t always like mysterious paths.  I like paths that make sense, paths that I understand, paths that I can clearly see where they are leading.

God’s paths are not like that.

They wind through sometimes dark woods.  These paths go uphill, often climbing steeply through rough terrain and most of the time I cannot tell where they are exactly heading.

Sitting with a friend recently, in a coffee shop we swapped God stories next to a quiet fire and caught up on each other’s journeys.  My single friend told me of her work and the small group that she leads and the women she is discipling and the beautiful things God is doing in her life.  And it was plain to me, as clear as the blue October sky that God was making her fruitful right where she was on her path.  This wasn’t a path she had wanted to follow, though.  She had thought she would have been married by now, maybe she would have had a baby. She didn’t understand what God was doing, how this path could produce fruit for Him.  No, this path of singleness wasn’t what she would have chosen right now, but it was what God had chosen for her.  And as she surrendered to the path and purpose of God, He was bringing forth sweet, fragrant fruit for His kingdom.

I told my precious friend of the God stories in my life, my married and seven kid, homeschooling life.  For me, I had thought, for too long that my path was inferior to other people's paths.  That I was “just a mother” and that I didn’t have a “real” ministry.  I had left my “real ministry” behind when God called me to quit my job/ministry at the para-church organization I had worked for and stay home to raise and homeschool my now seven children.  I didn’t understand what God was doing.  I didn’t understand how this path could bring Him glory, how this path could produce fruit for Him.  How could this be what He wanted for me?  Could He really use this? And there have been periods of time when my doubt about my path and my struggle to believe that God could use me here have made me less purposeful in my daily life. 

But over the last year or so this sweet single friend and I have gotten together to pray for one another, to cry for one another to sprinkle seed-words of faith over each other’s paths. And an amazing thing happened. 

We began to believe that God had beauty for each of us right where we were. 

No, our circumstances did not change much outwardly.  But something had begun to grow under that dark soil of our days, and faith’s green shoots began reaching up, overturning damp earth unfurling toward the light.

And now I am seeing the fruit of that faith growing ripe in each of our lives, producing a sweet and fragrant harvest of deeper contentment, love, and joy.

“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22

When we embrace the path God has for us, we witness the miracle of being made more like Jesus.

“Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.  Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. … Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else.  For we are each responsible for our own conduct.” Galatians 5:25-26 and 6:4-5

It is so easy to compare ourselves to others or wish for a different path than the one we have.
We each have a unique path, with different lessons to learn, different struggles, different blessings but there is beauty to be found on God's path for us.

God says we each have a work to do, a path carved out by the Holy Spirit himself and when we focus on what He has called us to do and we are faithful to follow it, we will get the satisfaction of a job well done. 

Embrace your path today.  Follow the Holy Spirit's leading for your life and be faithful in the work he has for you and you will find satisfaction, contentment, and fruitful life.

 

 

Whose path can you pray seeds of faith over today? How can you encourage someone to trust God on their difficult path?