This week's team journal is written by our Team Lead, Natalie Herr.
“And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.”
The Lord has been teaching me much lately about discernment and about listening; about carrying heavy things and about what walking with Him really looks like. I haven't been in a traditional season of waiting; in fact, I've been the one that people are waiting on. The decisions have been spiritual and theological, involving many people with many convictions. And if I'm honest, the responsibility has often felt too heavy, too weighty.
But as we've walked together, me and the Lord, I have come to understand why He puts that heaviness on me. He wants me to remember that I can't carry all of these heavy things alone. I really can't carry anything on my own. I need help; help from Him and help from my sisters in Christ who are called to bear the heaviness with me (Eph. 4:2). Not only that, but I can't know which road to walk down if I am preoccupied by the heaviness of my pack. He wants me to feel its weight, allow it to remind me that I'm not enough and that I don't have to be, and then continue the practice of giving Him the pack, because it's light and easy to Him (Matt. 11:30).
So this time, I gave him the pack, and he gave me a gift in return. That gift was Isaiah 30:18-22:
"Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, 'This is the way, walk in it,' when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, 'Be gone!'" (emphasis mine)
This is my God, my teacher. He is waiting with me, blessing me in my waiting and waiting himself to show me grace and mercy. He is close enough to me that he hears my cry and answers immediately; and I am close enough to him that he can whisper in my ear. He is behind me, faithful to lead me in the right way. And what happens when I hear his voice? I'm compelled to throw out all the idolatrous junk in my pack and leave it on the side of the road. I get to walk together with my God, weightless and free.
In times where we feel like we don't know the way, we must remember that God has already shown it to us. Just a few chapters later in Isaiah, we get a description and a promise:
"And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness, the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray." (Isaiah 35:8, emphasis mine)
Ya'll. Did you catch that? The Highway of Holiness belongs to those who walk on The Way. The Way is a person: Jesus Christ (John 14:6). And so those who walk on the way are the ones who walk with Jesus (Acts 9:2). And EVEN IF WE ARE FOOLS, my friends, WE WILL NOT GO ASTRAY. There is no way for us to miss the "right" way when we are walking with God! What-in-the-actual-world?! That is a mind-blowing, life-changing, worldview-shifting truth for all of us Jesus-loving fools.
Thank you for taking my pack, Lord. And thank you for the gift of your Word. In giving it to me, you kept another promise in Proverbs 16:20:
"Whoever gives thought to the word will discover good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord."
Blessed indeed, Lord. Blessed indeed. Help us trust you more.
Natalie Herr is the founder and team leader of Dayton Women in the Word. She is a servant of God, a wife, and a mom of four. She loves teaching and equipping women with God's Word.