Will You Go With Me?

Mark Folk

Sep 12

5 min read

The cost of obedience is not only what we leave behind. Sometimes it is following God when we cannot see what our obedience accomplished.

In Soul Weathered, I write about the cost of obedience.

I talk about being abandoned to God. About following Him when following costs us something. About times when I have questioned Him, wrestled with Him, and found myself at odds with Him because what was happening didn't look anything like what I thought would happen.

I wish I could say those questions are all behind me.

They're not.

I still get there.

I get there when I'm in the middle of something and don't see the results I expected.

I get there when I look at the effectiveness of ministry and wonder whether we're really making the impact I thought we would make.

I get there when something I prayed about, planned for and believed God was leading me into doesn't turn out the way I imagined.

And sometimes I just ask God:

Why?

When Obedience Doesn't Look Like I Thought It Would

Recently, during a podcast interview, the host asked me about some of the hardest moments in my walk with God.

I've been asked that several times since Soul Weathered was published.

When did you question God?

When was your faith tested?

When did you come close to the edge?

There are several places in the book where I talk about that.

Some of the hardest involved my daughter's illness.

I knew what it was like to live with chronic illness myself. And then my daughter was diagnosed with a serious chronic disease.

By that point, I had been in ministry for probably ten or twelve years. I had surrendered my life to following God. I was doing what I believed He had asked me to do.

And then this happened.

There were questions.

There was confusion.

There was pain.

But illness hasn't been the only place I've questioned God.

Sometimes it has happened right in the middle of ministry.

Blowing on a Wet Campfire

There have been things I believed God was leading me into that I thought were going to be incredible.

I prayed.

I planned.

I looked for confirmation.

I went to Scripture.

I sought counsel from trusted friends.

And then I stepped into it wholeheartedly.

Not halfway.

I gave myself to it.

And in my imagination, I could almost see what was coming.

People would respond.

They would come.

There would be excitement.

There would be energy.

It would grow.

And then...

A handful of people showed up.

The response was lukewarm.

And once it got started, it seemed like the only thing keeping it alive was me.

I've felt like a man kneeling beside a wet campfire, fanning the flame and breathlessly blowing on the coals, trying to keep the thing burning.

And I'm asking God:

Why isn't this roaring into a bonfire?

Why isn't this spreading?

Why aren't people responding?

I thought You led me here.

I thought this was what You wanted.

Those are some of the places where my faith has been tested.

And often, my questions eventually turn back toward myself.

Did I hear You correctly?

Did I miss something?

Was this You?

Was it me?

There have been things I've given myself to that affected only a few people and then seemed to fade away.

And that's difficult when you've given yourself wholeheartedly to something.

Especially when you've burned the bridges behind you.

What If Faithfulness Isn't Measured That Way?

I think about Paul.

There were places where he invested himself deeply. He taught. He discipled. He developed relationships. He poured himself into people.

And then God moved him on.

I also think about Hebrews 11.

We love the beginning of that chapter because we read about people who conquered kingdoms, shut the mouths of lions and saw extraordinary things happen through faith.

But then the chapter changes.

Others were tortured.

Some were imprisoned.

Some were persecuted.

Some were killed.

Some wandered in deserts and mountains.

And then Scripture says something extraordinary:

“These were all commended for their faith...”—Hebrews 11:39

Not their popularity.

Not the size of what they built.

Not how many people showed up.

Not whether anyone applauded.

Their faith.

Some of them we don't even know by name.

But God does.

And that confronts something in me.

Because I still battle my flesh.

I still battle my weaknesses.

I still battle ego.

I still want to see results.

I still want to know that what I've given my life to matters.

But maybe I've sometimes looked for the evidence in the wrong place.

Life Is Found in the Doing

There is something I keep coming back to.

When God calls you into something, the life isn't ultimately found in imagining what it could become.

It isn't found in planning it.

It isn't found in dreaming about the future.

Those things matter.

It takes vision.

It takes planning.

It takes imagination.

But that's not where I've found the deepest life.

The life is in the doing.

It's in the obedience.

It's in taking the step.

It's in actually going where God invited you to go.

That's where I've found Him.

Right in the midst of it.

Maybe the thing never becomes what I imagined.

Maybe only a handful of people come.

Maybe I never see what eventually grows from something I started.

Maybe God moves me somewhere else.

Maybe something that seemed important for a season simply comes to an end.

But if God invited me there and I went with Him, then something happened there that can't be measured only by the outcome.

We were there together.

An Adventurous God

I believe God longs to be with us.

From the beginning, there is this picture of God and humanity together in the garden.

And I believe we long for that same thing—to know Him, walk with Him, hear Him and experience His presence.

But God doesn't leave us standing in the garden.

God is adventurous.

He calls us out.

He invites us into places we haven't been.

Sometimes onto a high mountain.

Sometimes into a valley.

Sometimes into something exciting.

Sometimes into something frightening.

Sometimes into something that seems successful.

And sometimes into something that leaves us wondering what in the world He's doing.

Scripture says:

“For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.”—2 Chronicles 16:9

I love that picture.