At the Corner of Been-There and Nowhere
Wanna know what’s awesome about life with the Lord? When He speaks something freshly to you, and you get to walk in it, follow it, live it, do it. It’s seriously one of the most amazing things ever. Wanna know what’s less awesome? Not knowing what in the world the Lord is saying. Not having any particular direction for the next step that you know you’re supposed to take. Not having any practical clue how to live out the spiritual instructions you have in front of you. Not knowing.
I have many times been at the corner of been-there and nowhere, where I know the Lord is directing me to something new, something different, something not-the-same-as-where-I’ve-been. Sometimes, He includes what I’m going to, what I’m headed toward, or at least a general direction. But sometimes, it’s like there’s a blank in front of me. I just know the door is closing on the path behind me.
Have you seen “Wipeout” where they’re right in front of the “Big Balls,” but if they hesitate too long, half the platform they’re standing on will suddenly rise up and shove them off the edge? Yeah, sometimes life in God feels like that. Like half the platform I’m standing on is rising up and I know I’m about to go over the edge, and maybe even unlike those hesitating contestants I’m willing to go, I just don’t know where the next platform is. I don’t have any idea of what is solid ground and what is freefalling to my death.
“Now the Lord had said to Abram: ‘Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)
God does that, doesn’t He? He says to us, time to leave everything you have known of life with me thus far or how you have lived with me up to now, and to go to something new, something fresh, something you don’t even know how to envision.
He told Abram to leave everything and go to a land that “I will show you.” Ummmmm…. I’m gonna need just a tiny bit more direction than that. I’m willing to go, but is the land-You-will-show-me north-ish? West? Southeast? Close to Target? What about Starbucks? As the crow flies toward the mountains? Like how in the world am I supposed to put that into practical action?
“So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he departed from Haran.” (Genesis 12:4)
But just a few verses later, we see Abram went for it. He “departed as the Lord had spoken to him.” I mean, we all know where he ends up, we know his wanderings, his stopping places, his failures, his everything. But between verse 1 verse 4, when he’s packing everything up and having that yard sale to get rid of what they don’t want to pack with them and arguing with Sarai over just how many more camels’ worth of stuff they’re going to take… Between those verses, how did he know what direction to go?
Was it circumstances? Was it the weather patterns? Did God say something else to him? Did he just have a sense? Did 4 people come up to him in the week following verse 1 and mention Canaan so he figured that was God? Did God write “Canaan” in the clouds one day? How did Abram know where to go?
A few years ago, my husband and I picked up our giant family of 5 kids ages 3-14 and 2 dogs and moved from the land where I had basically grown up, where Todd and I had both grown up spiritually, where all of our kids were born and raised. We literally moved from everything we had ever known. But it was a weird little journey of getting there.
Todd had been feeling a prompting to move for a while, but every time he brought it up I was like, hard pass. I honestly thought we were exactly where the Lord had us, so it wasn’t even a question for me. Not to mention the trauma of moving the kids and what would we even be going to and how would it work and so. many. Questions. And so much heartache! Nearly my whole family lives here, all of our friends are here, our whole lives are here. There is no way I want to be separated from all of these treasures. So, hard pass. But the last time he brought it up, I knew that I was supposed to pray about it–I thought just so we could together end up at the answer I was already pretty sure of.
So I started praying, and it was like way at the end of a hallway, I could feel a teeny tiny little bit of peace at the prospect of moving. And it was like in the movies where they open a book but strange things start happening and they immediately snap it closed because they’re like whoa, too much. I saw this little tiny peace at the end of the “hallway” and immediately stopped praying. I was like, oh no. Not the peace. Lord, not the peace that surpasses understanding! Anything but that!!
It made ZERO sense to me, and honestly felt like it went against everything that the Lord HAD BEEN SAYING TO ME up that point. But there it was. Shoot.
So kind of like with Abram, we felt the “go” directive from the Lord. But… where? How in the world do we know where to go? I mean, we could honestly go ANYWHERE–which was thrilling for Todd and completely overwhelming for me. I don’t like shopping at Costco where there are 800 of everything. Give me Trader Joe’s where there’s just some of the best things. I don’t want all the options. I want like 3. Or even just 1. One option is good. Lord, tell us what to do–tell us clearly and plainly!!
The thing about us as humans is… well, we want to know. We want to know what’s going to happen if I say or do such-and-such. We want to know what we should eat, how we should exercise. We want to know how to make the most money we can possibly make. We want to know where God is leading us. I mean yeah yeah yeah, totally get He loves leading the blind by a way they didn’t know, and I’m totally cool with that, but uh… where will that ultimately take me?
From the very beginning, wanting to “know” is what tripped us up! The enemy promised Eve that she would “be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). He promised she wouldn’t die, like God had said, but that she should really trust what he (the enemy) was saying, because then she would “know” things. We’re not even going to go into what she and Adam “got” to know after they ate the fruit. Spoiler alert–nobody had “known” shame before that moment. What a lovely first thing to “know” about oneself. (spiritual eye roll)
God tells us over and over and over in the Bible that though He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow, His mercies are NEW every morning. He is constantly doing a NEW thing. He is putting NEW wine into NEW wineskins. We are to have faith and follow what He says (even if it feels like it’s not enough to go on).
There’s this interesting passage in John where a bunch of people come up on Jesus and they’re like, we’ve GOT to know–are You or aren’t You the Christ?
John 10
Then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, “How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me.
But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you.
My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
So they’re all like, Jesus, we simply MUST know–are You the One we’ve been waiting for? Because it kind of feels like You might be, but we just don’t KNOW for sure. Give us something that we can know that we know. Because honestly, we’ve had our hopes up before–I mean like, a lot–and we can’t handle that kind of up and down. And if You are really God, You’d understand our reticence. If You were really the One to save us, You would want us to KNOW, right?
Jesus is like, OK, I’m not sure you’re remembering how this works. That’s not really how We roll. Remember in Exodus when the Lord was telling Moses to go save the people from Egypt? And Moses was like, yeah, THAT’ll go over REAL well. I’m just supposed to march up and say “the God of your fathers sent me”? Yeah right! They’re gonna be like, oh yeah? You “know” the God of our fathers? Prove it! What’s His favorite color? What does He eat for breakfast? What’s His real name?
Exodus 3:14 “And God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you.”’”
I AM everything they have hoped for, everything they will ever need, everything they could dream of. I am not JUST the God of their fathers; I am THEIR God–they don’t know it yet, but that’s what we’re going to get to. I won’t be confined to one name–I won’t just be the-God-who-rescued-them, because then they’d always just want to be rescued when sometimes we’re gonna walk THROUGH hard times together. I won’t JUST be the-God-who-brought-them-to-the-Promised-Land, because then they’ll always expect things to work out well the first time. I won’t JUST be the-God-in-charge-of-them, because they might expect me to be like the Egyptians, a harsh taskmaster.
I AM the God who loves them, the God who hears them, the God who cries for them, the God who fights for them, the God who clothes them with sandals that won’t wear out, the God who creates a whole new food never heard of just because His children are hungry, the God who works miracles on their behalf, the God who walks them THROUGH the wilderness, the God who rescues them from the enemy, the God who fulfills every promise I have ever made, the God of yesterday today and tomorrow, the God who refuses to let them into the Promised Land when they don’t understand WHO. I. AM. I am everything they have heard and hoped, but I AM so much more. I AM WHO I AM.
Back in John 10, Jesus says, guys I AM. The signs that I do are not so you will KNOW, but so you will BELIEVE. Once you believe, you are My sheep–and then you know My voice–and honestly, that’s all you need to know! I AM the way, the truth, and the life. I AM the way forward, the truth that lights the way, and the life at the end of the road. I AM the Alpha AND the Omega, the beginning AND the end. I AM the Shepherd. Follow Me.
We won’t always get to “know” as much as we want to know when following the Lord. In fact, we rarely get to know as much as we want to know. But we do know Him. We know the great I AM. We know His voice.
Sometimes His voice leads us specifically. Sometimes He leads us generally. Sometimes He leads us through circumstances. Sometimes through calamity. Sometimes He leads us forward, sometimes He prevents us from going where we thought He was taking us. We don’t know the way once. We have to know His voice so we can hear that voice behind us saying “‘This is the way, walk in it,’ Whenever you turn to the right hand Or whenever you turn to the left” (Isaiah 30:21). There are going to be a lot of turns, a lot of corners, a lot of leave-everything-you’ve-ever-known-because-I’m-about-to-do-a-new thing. New. As in, not-yet-known-by-you. But when it happens, you’ll know. Because You know Him. You know His voice. You know the peace that goes beyond understanding, goes beyond knowing (Philippians 4:7).
People often ask us what brought us to this town, how we knew that we were supposed to be here. The quick answer is God funneled us here through a series of circumstances and life details. We didn’t have a specific get-thou-to-Roseville-and-you-will-meet-so-and-so or do such-and-such. We had our lives and God’s direction, and while we prayed and sought Him for any clue or specifics, we just had the “go,” along with the assurance that He would show us. He would show us the way, He would show us along the way, He would show us when we got here, He would show us after we got here, He would show us again and again and again.
I can’t point to anything specific that brought us here. But I have full faith that this is where the Lord led us. I have a LOT of questions for Him about the arrangement of our lives here, His purposes for us here, His continued leading of us while we’re here. I have questions for Him everyday. But I also have peace. Peace that undergirds me through the questions. Peace that keeps me looking to Him, regardless of my circumstances. Peace that assures me that when I come to the next corner of been-there and nowhere, I will hear that voice behind me telling me the way to go. Or at least, telling me when it’s time to go…
Maybe you’re at the corner of been-there and nowhere, and you know it’s time to “go” but you don’t know where or how to even find it.
Maybe you’ve dug your heels into the ground insisting He give you something “clear and plain” before you’ll move.
Maybe you have a bunch of circumstances, but nothing specific from the Lord.
Maybe you have what feel like conflicting directions from the Lord.
Maybe you really feel like you need to know what to do.
Maybe there is a great wilderness, a blank, a nothingness in front of you and you have no idea which way to turn (or whether to turn at all).
Keep seeking His voice. Look for His peace. He’s spoken through donkeys and bushes and people and circumstances and kings and beggars and friends and foes… He knows how to get through to you. And you really do know His voice. That’s all you need to know. His voice. His words. His way, His truth, His life. You are His sheep. You will hear that voice behind you, in one form or another.
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness And rivers in the desert.” (Isaiah 43:18-19)
