A Boy Meets God

The journey of my life has been characterized by seasons, and in those seasons, high and low moments. Moments of joy, and moments of despair. Moments of hope, and moments of near lack of it. Some moments of zeal, and moments when I couldn’t bring myself to lift a finger. There were seasons when my innocence went before me like a trail of vine branches, and other seasons when my youthful passions got the best of me.

Like most average young people, those seasons of innocence didn’t last quite as long as I would have loved them to, now that I look back at them in retrospect. Somewhere along the line, the desire to make sense of life kicked in. Suddenly, I wanted to be in charge of the process. Suddenly, I needed to know what to do, when, and why. And no, it wasn’t me growing up, it was me trying to explore. It was me trying to be like everyone else. To do what everyone else was doing.

My seasons came with some form of social to-do lists, and also some religious standards to be met. These social tasks when achieved, earn you a place with your pairs. But yet, you had to meet the religious standards too, else you had to part with the lord. So, balancing the scales became a full-time job for a young naïve mind like mine. And what did I try to do? Balance the scales of course.

When I mentioned moments of despair, lack of zeal, and near hopelessness earlier, I was referring to the days when I worked the job of balancing the scales of my life. It is needless to say that I was terrible at doing it. Because all I achieved was a direct opposite of balance. And it sapped the life out of me. How do you balance a thing you did not set in motion in the first place? A question nobody was asking then, so I didn’t know needed to be answered in my own life. I just glided with the seasons.

And as with every typical season, mine kept coming and going but leaving me hanging in the balance. Some seasons brought in the harvest of every foolishness sowed, while some didn’t seem to yield a thing at all, despite what I sowed. I was empty, needy, and clingy. So much for one life’s journey. Something was obviously not in place. At least it was obvious to me that a little more distance invested along that path may end me in a land of no return. But did I have the right coordinates to where I should be headed though? I certainly didn’t.

Let me backtrack a little. How did I ever know that the path I was traveling on was not the right one? Nobody told me, but somehow I knew. It took a few crashes to realize I had a companion on my life’s journey that I never paid attention to. Although he spoke at almost every turn I took, I never cared to listen. For me, he was a show stopper. A clog in the wheels of my thrills. And no, I’m not talking about a mere voice of reason. I’m talking about the God who has had a stake in my destiny from the word go.

Though he traveled with me all these years, through the darkest of tunnels I have been in and out of, I still hadn’t met him. He didn’t seem to have much to offer after all, so why waste my time? Well, so I thought. But he stuck by, waiting for an opportunity for me to lift my head so he would introduce himself. That moment came. But I wish it came earlier. I waited until I was down and out. I waited until I had no more options to explore. Or, should I rather say he waited till I came out of myself?

He charted a new course for me, and the seasons of my life took a whole new turn. But just before you think everything became golden and all laughter, let me stop you right in the middle of that thought. His ways are nothing like I have experienced before. They were new and definitely uncomfortable. That’s what happens when life stops running on your own terms.

Many times I contemplated a return to the familiar. And sometimes I did go back. But every time I made that return, the experience of it left me even more broken than I ever was. The difference this time was that I had met a personality whose commitment to keeping my lot, he backed up by fierce love. He stopped at nothing to crash everything that wasn’t him. And in his mercy, opens my eyes to see the destructiveness in what I thought I was comfortable with.

A boy meets God but needed to travel the journey of learning His ways. And even as I write today, the crux of my message is that His ways are past finding out. If you are as calculative and organized as I can be about life and its processes, you may want to heed this very closely; He will undo you. He follows no set program, and as such, your program cannot count.

But here’s something I have found to be true. If you would permit that level of fluidity in your response to him as often he would require, there’s no telling what depths of grace you would unlock. And oh what fulfillment comes with just being led of him and not having to worry about the details of whence you are led.

A boy meets God, and the adventure keeps unfolding.

Shalom!

Biyama Joseph

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