Throughout college, I depended on weightlifting. I went to the gym twice a day, planned my weeks around it, and thought about it when I wasn’t there. It was a space where I could relieve stress and better myself, but unconsciously, I also depended on it to sustain me. If I had a bad day, I went to the gym. If I failed a test, got into a fight with friends, wanted to celebrate something good, feared an outcome, or was feeling down, the gym was my antidote. And if I couldn’t go, I was unstable because I had allowed it to become the foundation for my fears, angers, joys, and the source of an unbreakable routine. When is something that is healthy become unhealthy? When does moderation spiral to dependence and when does that dependence take the place of God?
Proverbs 16:9 says “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.” When I sit at the base of the mountain, I look to its peaks with the same awe as I do once I reach the top to survey the bottom. The inverse still holds true because my distance whether on the way to the summit or walking back to where I came is sustained by the same hand who guides me both ways. I depend on the Lord to walk with me, though I often find myself rather expecting him to walk in front of me; to clear the path of obstacles, to smooth the rocks that hurt my feet, to shield the rain from pelting me. While he makes my steps, it is of my own volition how I travel them. I can bury them in the mud, walk around them as I stray from the path, or I can walk backwards before realizing where such a trail could lead.
Every time I experience both a joy or a trial, I ask myself, “How will God use this for good?” It is a recognition of my submission to Him, the knowing that I myself cannot alone use a circumstance to produce good—but that all that is good in me are seeds planted and watered by Him. It is a fuller dependence, though it does not excuse my own agency and the blessing that is free will. While I plan my course, the Lord will give me my steps. When I fall down on my knees in silence and quiet my mind to invite the voice of the spirit to flood my heart and soul, I do so in hopes that he will transform my free will for good. He will establish my steps with care so that when I rise, I am able to walk over them with His strength.
When I worry for or pray over my family, I ask God not only to pave the steps for them but to grab hold of their hands tightly so that they know they don’t have to march alone. Jesus says the path to eternal life is narrow and difficult to travel, one that is steep and winding with surprises around every corner. It is not one you can rest on, but a road that will give rest the longer you travel. It is the only hike wherein you are stronger the longer you persist, the longer you depend on goodness to be around corners you can see but cannot peer behind. Believing in the divinity of Christ is a massive leap of faith because we have never seen his ministry in real time, never witnessed his miracles, nor been around during the resurrection. However, those of us of the faith have chosen to turn that corner willingly with full confidence. So why do we fear those other corners in life, those that aren’t on the pages of scripture but in front of us daily? It is because we can see them that they become more real, more tangible, more believable? I fear Christians have an easier time believing in what they can’t see than what is in front of them, and an even harder time making a second leap of faith to allow God to intervene in the spaces between that which they visualize, are blind to, what is physically or mentally real, and that which is imagined and promised. If Christ too was in front of us in human form, might it be harder to believe in Him than by worshiping his image? This is a scary thought to digest, though one I believe every Christian should sit with when they contemplate the strength of their dependence on Him and His ways.
In 2020, I had a terrible injury that ultimately prevented me from lifting for over three years and has changed the way I will be able to lift for the rest of my life. That first week, month, and year was so destabilizing as I felt my world turn upside down. I had to source my emotions into something or someone else. God had to take the shovel from my hand to see how the deep the hole I was standing in was. My identity, image, and body were in limbo and changing faster than I felt I was ready to, was able to accept, and ultimately embrace. But even when it was ok for me to lift again, I was not dependent on it to satisfy something in me because I was able to step outside of it and myself to realize how far from God’s path I had wandered. I was not honoring Him. We are saved by grace, not the works of human hands and hearts (our own or those of loved ones). We have a debt that is paid through our belief in Christ. But the transformation that is inherent to life of servitude to Christ is enacted daily through everyday choices of what will foster greater dependence on Him and those choices which either draw us nearer or farther from His character. So, I will ask myself another few questions that extend on how he will use everything for good: If he was standing next to me right now, would I be on the path he has set for me when I looked down? Would I even recognize Him as the providential guide that I trust to bring me around blind corners?
Father, I ask that you draw nearer to me when I stray farther from you. I pray that when I plan my course, you laugh as you plan a better one. When you lay steps out in front of me, instill a discernment that recognizes how better your ways are than my own that I seem to rely on more often. Guide my free will to be dependent on yours so that when I dig too deep you take the shovel from my hands and pull me from the hole. Lead me as you made me, in the image of your son so that I may better embody the characteristics that makes Him so good. You are the antidote for waywardness so when the mountain seems insurmountable, walk with me instead of for me.
“Every time I experience both a joy or a trial, I ask myself, “How will God use this for good?” It is a recognition of my submission to Him, the knowing that I myself cannot alone use a circumstance to produce good—but that all that is good in me are seeds planted and watered by Him.” I love when you say this & remind me of all the ways God can use moments for His glory, not our own.