Which way to go, you ask?

In normal, everyday life we need some directions. In current life, lately, we seem to need even more. More choices, more situations. The stakes are higher, the possible repercussions seem even more dastardly, especially if we look at the news. Needing direction, we often ask for directions. We research, look for options, ask questions, find opinions. “What should I do?!” We ask ourselves, and each other, at night, in the morning, as we go along on our way. What we’re really after, though, is direction.

That’s why I love this verse.

“Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.””

Isaiah 30:21

This verse is so beautiful and so necessary when we’re looking for truth and wisdom. We will hear a voice behind us telling us which way to go, what to do.

What does it sound like, you ask? It sounds like an awful lot of different things. It might be an actual voice you hear. Or it might not. It might be a feeling, it may be a knowing, a sense of urgency. Maybe it’s an imploring, a deep a sense of unsettledness. But if it’s truly coming from God, it will come with an overwhelming sense of peace. Not that you will only feel peace. You will feel a lot of things. But peace can be the undercurrent. It comes with the territory when you listen to His voice.

We just need ears to hear it. To listen. Which starts, often, with the asking. Remembering to ask for His guidance, we will surely get it. Sometimes remembering can feel like the hardest part.

That was me recently. It was something so small, so little, I won’t even go into the details. Even though I hemmed and hawed over it, it was so little that I forgot to ask for direction. But later, after I decided and moved forward, I felt very troubled and unsettled. It wasn’t just feedback that I had gotten or any consequence of any action that I could see, everything seemed fine. But it was a feeling that came, and I knew something was wrong. I wrestled in quiet and sought clarity. I realized that I had relied on my own judgement alone, I had weighed the situation according to what I knew, I leaned into a little fear, and I forgot to ask for direction from Him. Woah. It sounds so simple, but it is so pivotal to following God. And I had forgotten.

Well, when you put it that way… I better keep asking.

Now, if you keep reading the scripture, you’ll see something I hadn’t seen before, until a few days ago. But boy is it good. Because, Yes, you will hear a voice when you ask. But then what? The next part shows what walking in faith really looks like.

“Then you will destroy all your silver idols and your precious gold images. You will throw them out like filthy rags, saying to them, “Good riddance!””

Isaiah 30:22

Gold and silver destroyed? What does that mean?

It means you stop trusting in anything more than you trust God.

You choose to stop trusting your safety blankets, your decisions, your process or your ways. Yes, we can think and decipher and seek wisdom. But above all of it, if we’re asking for His guidance, we might have to throw some of those things in the fire. It’s what I didn’t do the other day. And it troubled me. Oh boy, it troubled me. Because as “right” or as justified as I had been in my thinking, I had questioned and yet forgotten to ask the question to the Lord, “Which way should I go?” I had forgotten God, forgotten to invite Him into the equation, and forgotten to ask HIM the question. And if that’s not idolatry, personally, I don’t know what is.

This isn’t to be legalistic or cast shame on anyone else. But if I say I want Him to lead me, I want Him to use me, and I’m not even consulting Him, and instead, I’m leading with and leaning on my own understanding, then what am I even doing? ‘Is that walking in faith’, I stopped to wonder, and before I even could answer, knew in my heart already the answer.

This time is an invitation to mankind for more faith. And if we decide to walk in faith, and trust God MORE, we must ask for *His* guidance AND listen to His voice. To trust God above EVERYTHING- our ideas, our comforts. Because He’s trustworthy. Because everything else is worthless rags, everything else is trusting in idols.

“Throw it in the fire!” (I know that sounds wild. But that’s how I felt the other day. Have you ever felt like that? Then keep reading!)

Use your resources, but don’t forget the ultimate source, God Himself.

There may be fears that come, in fact, it’s likely they will. You might feel inner and outer resistance- coming from your own fear or the world and theirs. But fear was never intended to be your guide. We get to decide to Whose voice we listen to.

With our calculations we think too far down the path, and we feel anxiety. Uncertainty. But how could we not feel those things. That path is unknown to us, so obviously there is hesitation and trepidation. But. If you know that voice, if you know Who it is asking you to walk through it, you can “be not afraid.” The one who called you is faithful.

You don’t have to figure out the path before you can decide to go. That’s what faith is all about. You don’t have to figure it out as a prerequisite for going. You have to trust the one who called you.

Then the last part of that verse is this.  

“Then He will give you rain for your seed which you will sow in the ground, and bread from the yield of the ground, and it will be rich and plentiful; on that day your livestock will graze in a wide pasture.”

Isaiah 30:23

What does this mean? When you do what it is you believe He is telling you, when you cast off the idols and things that would hold you back from following the voice, there is a blessing of obedience, an abundance that comes, even when you least expect it.  Faith is rewarded in heaven. Faith God’s currency, and when you follow it, there will be goodness that follows you, His goodness. His faithfulness will be your shield, it will follow you wherever you go. When you know it, you know that is enough. But don’t be surprised when the blessings don’t stop there. “I have never seen the righteous forsaken, nor their children begging for bread.” “The righteous man lives by faith.”

Now listen, there will be plenty people that don’t understand, that will think you’ve gone off your rocker, or are going off the deep end. It’s okay. Faith is so contrary to the way the world does most things. It’s not for the faint of heart. It looks like crazy, but it feels like ultimate peace. It might look desperate, but you e been desperate. Desperate is looking for something and never finding it. Faith is knowing you have.

However crazy it might sound or look to the outside world or to your mind, when you know what faith is asking you to do, you know that’s the way you must go. We might take a while to process or embrace things. We might be a quick jumper. However long it takes us to finally decide to follow, there is a blessing waiting, an abundance God has prepared. Many of us get stuck in the middle there, wrestling between listening to God and holding on to our idols, and when we do, we’re missing out. We can find the better things He has prepared for us, we only need to trust Him and go after it.

I’ve gotta back peddle for a minute here. The verse before all of this? Before asking, and throwing off idols, and walking into greater blessings? It’s Isaiah 30:20. “Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.”

Sometimes it takes adversity at first, for us to start asking those questions. the right ones especially. It takes trouble for us to start seeing our real need and where we’re really wanting. In affliction and trouble, we begin to look beyond our idols, and ourselves, and see where we’ve come up short. It is then that we can really see what it is that we need. And it is then that we can walk into greater faith and abundance than we ever have before.

So let this troubling time be a reminder. Not to doubt, or to double down on yourself, but to lean in. To trust God. Then you’ll get to see all that He has prepared for you, the good path you’re meant to be on. It sometimes takes a broken road to get back on the right one anyway.

Even when it doesn’t make sense. Even if we’re afraid. Once you know the way you’re meant to go, go. Cast aside all of that rubbish, as many times as necessary, and keep walking.

Too many good things are waiting for us. Praying this becomes more true for you, for all of us. Hear the voice behind you. Throw aside the idols. Keep going. And see the goodness that He has prepared for you. Now, go!