Teach me, Guide Me, Lead Me.

Christianity often tells us that our lives should be about building bridges, not walls. But that doesn’t seem to stop us from placing brick after brick upon one another when we feel hurt, betrayed or our ego has been a little bruised. We leap from offence to defence and automatically believe in the value of preservation and protection over openness and forgiveness. We pile our restraints and our disappointments on top of one another; building mountains out of our disagreements and turning our backs on one another. We maintain positions of defence, rather than positions of grace. We shut out the very hands that were made to help, and push away the very hearts that were sent to love. We segregate, separate and slowly disintegrate internally as Satan celebrates his ability to remove us from everything God has worked so hard to build. Stubbornness consumes our once sweet spirit, and we somehow begin to believe that allowing offence and self-righteousness to dictate our steps is what is wise and beneficial. When it comes to the building of walls, many hands make light work - but when the sun goes down and the building ceases, we find ourselves alone within the walls we have built, with no one to lean on but our own self-destructive attitude and behavioural pattern, and we wonder where we went wrong.. God doesn’t encourage us to build walls - Satan does. When wolves hunt, they do not go straight in for the kill; they watch, wait and prey on the easy target; the animal that appears most weak and easily separated, and then they work to remove them from the pack for an easy take down. This is how Satan works also; He is a wolf, a thief who comes to steal and destroy. But a wall can only be built if we choose to extend upward instead of extending outward. Building bridges instead of walls when we feel entrapped by circumstance without a way out, forges a new pathway of growth and hope, and invites others along on the journey of recovery with us. Our human instinct is to run and hide; but Jesus is calling us out from the depths of our offences and into the realms of freedom, healing and truth. He is calling us to be brave. So stop building up, and start building out.

Hidden Figures (2016) dir. Theodore Melfi 

But understand, when you’re out there in the deep waters, you can’t touch the ground. You can’t see the shoreline, and at times, it can get a little rocky. You may not always see how things are going to work out. But, the scripture tells us that deep calls to deep. In other words, God is the one who has called you to the deep waters. He is with you, and He knows there are deep things on the inside of you. Remember, in deep waters, you are not alone. God is with you, and He’s causing those deep things inside of you to come forth.

“The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world.” - Warsan Shire