We Were Never Meant to Walk Alone

How God has revealed more of Himself to me through the people walking beside me.

There are eight Waypoints in Soul Weathered.

They represent different places in my life where I began to recognize a theme in what God was doing and what He was showing me.

Some came through being a father.

Some through discovering God's relentless pursuit of me.

Some through beginning to understand eternity and His Kingdom.

Others came through wrestling with my own flesh, my failures, my questions, and my desire to know God more deeply.

All of those revelations were very personal.

God made them personal.

But I don't want anyone reading Soul Weathered to get the impression that I discovered these things by going off somewhere by myself and figuring out God.

I didn't.

For more than thirty years, I've been walking with other men who are seeking God too.

Men who are asking.

Seeking.

Knocking.

Men who want a closer relationship with Jesus and want to become more like Him while being painfully aware of their own broken flesh.

They know their weaknesses.

They know their sins.

They know the places where they've lost ground.

They know the places that have become broken or spoiled.

But they're moving.

They're pursuing.

They're desiring a unity and oneness with Christ that overtakes those weaknesses and restores what has been lost.

I've been rubbing shoulders with men like that since my late twenties.

And you can't do that for thirty-plus years without it changing you.

You can't walk closely with other image bearers who are becoming more like Christ without seeing things about God you might never have seen on your own.

I've gained insight into Scripture through other men.

I've seen God's love through them.

His wisdom.

His generosity.

His joy.

His strength.

His patience.

His complexity.

His mystery.

I've watched one man who is deeply contemplative and thought, There's something about God there.

I've watched another man who is incredibly generous.

Another who seems to carry joy wherever he goes.

Another who is simple in the very best sense of that word. He doesn't complicate everything. He trusts God and moves.

Another wrestles with mystery and isn't satisfied with easy answers.

And I've learned from all of them.

Because each bears the image of God.

Not completely.

None of us does.

But there are facets of God reflected through people that I don't possess myself.

And I need those people.

Maybe We Should Look a Little Longer

That's something I'm continuing to learn.

Sometimes another person's personality irritates us.

We want to fix them.

We want them to think more like us.

Respond more like us.

See things the way we see them.

But maybe we should look a little longer.

Maybe instead of immediately asking, What's wrong with this person?, we should occasionally ask:

What am I seeing here that might reveal something about the nature of God?

That's a very different question.

Because God didn't make all of us alike.

Male and female bear His image.

Different personalities bear His image.

The wise.

The simple.

The joyful.

The contemplative.

The courageous.

The compassionate.

The person who wrestles with mystery and the person who seems to possess tremendous faith.

There is something of God's enormous personality and nature being revealed through His people.

And when we walk together long enough, we begin seeing it.

Personal, But Never Solitary

That's what I want to make clear about Soul Weathered.

My walk with God has been intensely personal.

Jesus makes it personal.

He knows me.

He speaks to me.

He deals with my heart.

He confronts my sin.

He reveals Himself to me in ways that sometimes seem meant only for me.

But here's the thing:

He does that with every one of His children.

And then He brings us together.

We're not supposed to be isolated, solitary pursuers of Jesus Christ.

We're supposed to walk together.

I'm not talking simply about going to church.

I'm talking about something deeper.

I'm talking about oneness with one another in Christ and through Christ.

Knowing one another.

Walking together long enough to recognize God's gifting in each other.

Encouraging it.

Calling it out.

Learning from it.

And ultimately, coming to know more of God because of what we see of Him in the people walking beside us.

Jesus prayed for that kind of oneness in John 17. He prayed that His followers would be one, even as He and the Father are one.

And when Jesus taught us to pray, He said:

"Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Think about that.

God's will in heaven isn't isolation.

It's relationship.

It's fellowship.

It's community.

Before there was Adam.

Before there was Eve.

Before there was humanity.

There was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Relationship was there before we were.

And we were created for relationship too.

That's why, looking back over the Waypoints of Soul Weathered, I can see something I don't want to overlook.

Yes, God was speaking to me.

Yes, He was revealing Himself personally to me.

But scattered all along that trail are people.

Men.

My wife.

My daughters.

My family.

Friends.

People God placed beside me who showed me something about Him that I needed to see.

Some encouraged me.

Some challenged me.

Some frustrated me.

Some taught me.

Some carried me.

And some simply allowed me to watch what God looked like coming through a person very different from me.

I know more of God because I've walked with them.

And I think that's part of His design.

Maybe there's something about God you're never going to discover alone.

Maybe you'll see it in the person walking beside you.

So don't walk alone.

And don't be so quick to dismiss the people who aren't like you.

Look a little longer.

Listen a little longer.

Walk with them.