Is it time to go?
Arise, go to Zarephath, which belongs to Sidon, and dwell there.
_1 Kings 17:9 (NKJV)
Father God, I have come to understand that eventually You always say “Go.”
I want to settle down. I want to know where all the furniture is so that I can walk through the house in the dark. I like familiar, predictable, safe, certainty…I relish these words.
And then there’s my favorite restaurant, and I know the way to the post office, I like my doctor, and (very importantly) my wife’s happy with the lady who cuts her hair.
“Go” may mean I have to give all that up.
“Go” is so stressful.
“Go” means I have to move (“Arise”).
“Go” is full of uncertainty.
Things are different over there. The people are different, The circumstances are different. My friends aren’t there. I’ll miss my family.
And the weather! What were You thinking?
And then there’s the politics. I know You love everybody, but surely you’re not expecting me to be the one to tell them.
Go? Why?
Oh I understand, I hear it now…
We must go because we are following You and You are a God that goes, that cares, that reaches out.
I don’t know what the “Go” will look like. It may be to go across the street or across town. It may mean walking across the hall and sticking my head in the door of someone I hardly know. It may mean to drive across the state, across the country, or even across the sea.
It may mean I need circle back and handle some unfinished business. To say things I never got around to saying or to apologize for things that would have been better unsaid.
It may be a short “Go” that gets me back home at night or it may be a long “Go” that requires a lot of packing, a lot of letting go, and a long good-bye.
But this I know, if I follow You, there will eventually be an “Arise and go…”
The ONE THING for today: Oh Risen Lord, help me to never say “No” to your “Go”.
But I do pray that You will go with me…always, even to the end of the world.
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
