You Can Always Change Things Later

Now bring two bulls. The prophets of Baal may choose whichever one they wish and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their alter, but without setting fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood of the alter, but not set fire to it. Then call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by setting fire to the wood is the true God! And all the people agreed (1st Kings 18:23-24, NLT).

I guess you can consider this a not-so-humble brag, but, for the most part, I’ve always been fairly successful at whatever endeavors the Lord has led me into.

Growing up in a family of boys, I’ve had a ball in my hand since I was old enough to coordinate doing so. Academics have always been a primary focus in my life, and I was fortunate enough to carry a good GPA all throughout my schooling. Neither of those successes came without diligent practice and study, but I also recognize that the Lord has been very good to me in my life, especially in regard to my athletic and academic abilities.

Several years ago when I finally stepped out into the unknown of creating a website and following the path of writing that I felt the Lord leading me toward, it was a little scary and wasn’t without some fear. You would think that because of all the ways the Lord has been so faithful in my life thus far that it would be easier to trust God when I’m feeling afraid, right? Not necessarily always true. Let’s flip to the story of Elijah from the Bible to highlight this truth.

The story of Elijah from 1st Kings is one of my favorites in all of the Bible. I would encourage you to read it on your own sometime, but to summarize, Elijah the prophet challenged the prophets of Baal, a false God, to a contest that would help identify the One True God. The challenge can be summed up in 1st Kings 18:23-24: Now bring two bulls. The prophets of Baal may choose whichever one they wish and cut it into pieces and lay it on the wood of their alter, but without setting fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood of the alter, but not set fire to it. Then call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by setting fire to the wood is the true God! And all the people agreed.

To make a long story short, when the prophets of Baal called on their gods, there was no answer; yet, when Elijah called on the Lord, he immediately set fire to and burned up everything on the altar. What a display of faith by Elijah! He didn’t know the Lord would answer his call, but by choosing to trust in Him, the Lord’s power was on display for all to see.

If we continue reading in 1st Kings and move into Chapter 19, we’ll see that in just a very short time after Elijah witnessed the Lord’s faithfulness, he became afraid and chose to flee after receiving a threatening message from Jezebel. Whoa, wait a minute. Didn’t the Lord just come through for Elijah so faithfully, yet he is already fleeing in fear? This story highlights the truth that we often allow fear to overcome our faith, even when God has been continually faithful in our lives. Elijah’s story helps to validate my own struggles with trust, and I recognize that my failure to fully place my trust in the hands of a good God is not a struggle unique to me, but to all of us as part of the human condition.

That being said, the journey I’ve been on thus far with The Narrow Path has led me to lean into my faith in new ways, and I’ve found the Lord continues to use it as a way to challenge, stretch, and grow me. This has also been true in many other endeavors in my life as well. Because I have always been so success-oriented, it has often been difficult for me to jump into a new project when I don’t have an outline to follow or when I don’t feel adequately equipped to do the job exactly right.

For example, after buying my house, I can still remember when I bought my first piece of furniture that needed to be assembled. It was a bookcase, and let me tell you, I was so nervous to work on putting it together by myself. I can still remember feeling inadequate and hearing a voice in my head, no doubt it was the enemy, whispering to me: What if you don’t do it right? You’ll probably mess something up and break the bookcase. It’s going to look terrible. You can’t do this on your own, you don’t know what you’re doing. All these attacking thoughts over a dang bookcase! Maybe you can relate.

Looking back now, it seems so silly, but I’m also able to recognize how diligent the enemy was to use fear to try and keep me from stepping out into learning a new skill. I can think of countless other examples that I’ve encountered since then where I’ve experienced the same voice in my head: trying to hang curtains, helping a friend with a painting project, and the list goes on. A desire to be successful or for things to turn out a certain way, coupled with a limited skill set in new areas, has been one of the ways the enemy has tried to keep me from stepping out of my comfort zone. Though the examples I have given so far have been project-related, that has absolutely been true of my journey with The Narrow Path as well.

The Lord has used the voice of a friend in a pretty significant way over the last year to help me work through this struggle. After making a decision recently, this friend sent me a text encouraging me to follow-through on something I’d been putting off for quite some time. Her text read: You can always change things later!

That message has stuck with me. It’s a reminder that when I’m faced with trying my hand at a new project, or taking a leap of faith into something unknown, especially when it comes to The Narrow Path, I can always change things later. And thankfully, even when fear is present, one thing that will never change is the faithfulness of God.

When I made the leap to create my website in 2017, I was stepping out into something without a sure path. However, over the past four years I’ve witnessed the Lord’s faithfulness as I have continued to take things one step at a time, as He leads. For a while after creating the website, and I’m talking like two years, I really didn’t move forward much at all. Eventually, after promptings from the Lord and several close friends, I finally made a commitment to writing and opening my heart to wherever the Lord may want to lead me.

Here I sit, several years later, having just clicked the “Order Now” button on some business and thank you cards that feature my very own logo representing The Narrow Path. It’s so incredibly hard to believe the Lord has brought me this far. And truthfully, whether I ever hand out a single business or thank you card is not all that important to me. What is important is that I plan to put several of those cards up in various places in my house so that each time I see them, I’m reminded of God’s faithfulness along every step of my journey. I want to learn from Elijah, and, when faced with the opportunity to flee and run away from something God is leading me to do, I want to choose faith instead.