The Force of Your Will: A Year Five Update
“The grass looked greener on the other side, So I tried to snatch myself from your hand”.
Those are the first few words in a song by Caedmon’s Call that I have loved since I first heard it in 2005. The song draws from the story of Jonah and his desire to avoid God’s will for his life. As a believer, I relate a lot to Jonah. Someone who wants to do things his own way, someone who thinks he knows best, and someone who believes he can run away when following God gets difficult or uncertain. That was Jonah, and in a lot of ways, that is me.
If you don't know, In May of 2017, after three years of coming back to the Lord, I wrote a piece about my life, my sexuality, and what it means for me to follow Jesus. I have updated it with a follow up piece each year. So this is year five. For me (and I suspect many others), the past year has been a year filled with change, isolation, despair, endings, and most importantly, a lot of questioning.
With all the extra time we got this past year to reflect on our lives, I found myself focused A LOT on my future, loneliness, strong desires for deep companionship, and wondering what in the world the Lord has for me on this journey as I daily surrender (imperfectly) all areas of my life to him, including sexuality. I found myself frustrated a lot. I’ll be honest, I was angry with God at times. I thought of the words of Paul in Philippians. “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling;” (Philippians 2:12). Paul is NOT saying that we should work to earn our salvation. We can’t do that. It’s been given to us freely as believers through the finished work of Christ. Paul is encouraging us to examine our lives and see our salvation lived out in every area of our lives. As saved people, how do our lives look? Notice here that Paul also says YOUR OWN salvation. Yes, we are called to care for the faith lives of others, but we must first begin by examining our own lived out faith. Lastly, he says to do so with fear and trembling. Paul isn’t saying we are to be afraid and scared of God. As I was studying this passage, I ran across a commentary that replaced the word “fear” in this verse with “reverence” and explained the trembling as a joy filled trembling. To bring that all back, that means that I am called, no, I am invited to examine my faith walk with reverence and a sense of joy and wonder. And I have done that a lot this past year. Through the anger, loneliness, uncertainty, desires, I have examined. And as Paul says a few verses later, I am doing my best to hold fast to the word of life. And what does the word of life tell me? That God is good and that I shall see his goodness in the land of the living (Psalm 27:13-14). That he is a promise keeper (Psalm 144:14-20). That I can trust him in the unknown (ALL of Psalm 31).
These are things I sometimes struggle to believe, especially as I try to navigate this particular area of my life. The truth is, sometimes I even long to just run away from it all. Doubts creep up. Those thoughts allow me to escape, and honestly, sometimes I think that is necessary. But as I think through that, I often land at the end of that Caedmon’s call song I quoted at the beginning. “So you have yourself your 99 (sheep) isn’t that enough for you?” I get that so much. Sometimes I'm like, “God, just let me be!” The next line “Still you followed me to the shadowed valley, carried me on your shoulders too”. That will preach. Jesus will come to me in the valley and pick me up.
As the song nears its end, we are met with a reference to Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a cruel Greek king that received the punishment of having to push a huge rock up a hill. Every time he got near the top though, it would roll all the way back down and he would repeat the same cycle over and over. “I've done the work of Sisyphus, thinking that I could get over this hill. But the one thing I can't get over now is the force of your will.” So as I wrestle with fear and trembling, as I have my doubts, and my concerns, the strong belief in the will of God for my life compels me to specifically keep trusting him in this area of my life. That’s the year five update. It looks a lot like year four in terms of no big revelations, just an ongoing journey of trusting Jesus one season at a time. I’ll end this with the chorus of that song.
“Here I am again, back where I began. Try as I may, I can't get away from you. And all of these roads lead me to roam, Bring me back home. Here I am again, back where I began.”
Where I began by Caedmon’s Call.
Henry Wasonga Abuto
