The Night

"See!" Joshua said to the people. "This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God." (Joshua 24:27)


Following the Lord is hard. Being a Christian is hard. Obedience is hard. Count the cost, Jesus said. And I did. For a week of existential desperation, I searched my heart, devoured Scripture, spent hours in prayer, fasted way more than was healthy. I counted every cent of what it would cost me. I screened the voice of the Lord more meticulously than I ever have before. I had to be sure. I had to know that it was God. I had to know that I was willing to risk everything I was, everything I desired and feared, for this great commission. God had laid out in black and white what he was asking of me. Frankly, he was asking for everything. Everything I never wanted to give.

And yet... it was everything I had vowed to give him on February 24. I just had no idea that this is how he would ask for it. It went against everything the cliche "guard your heart" Christianity would suggest. God was asking - commanding - that I take a risk. The biggest risk I have ever considered. The kind of risk that no one sees. The kind of risk that steers my whole future and how I perceive and interact with other people. It's the kind of risk that puts my whole belief in the goodness of God on the line.

Yes, after a week of existential crisis, I chose to obey. But that wasn't enough. God wanted more. He wanted me to throw my whole life into it, my whole heart, completely and entirely, holding nothing back. "I don't want you to just choose the promises," he said, "I want you to commit to them, forsaking all other possibilities. I want you to live you like you believe. I want you to risk all your dreams on this one promise."

I counted the cost. "If I perish, I perish," I said. I stood tall. I wrestled all hell and hades for what I believed. I trusted in the goodness of God. I fell into blackness and rose up in God's strength. I fought the good fight.

April 13 was the day. It was the day I began to wear the sign of the covenant. It was a witness between God and me of all that had been transacted between us. It was a sign of his promises and of what he had required of me. It was a testament to the world that I believed in the living word of God. It was a physical reminder that I was irrevocably bound to the covenant that God had established.

Yes, I fought the good fight. But a soldier can only fight for so long. The covenant remains, and I remain bound to it. The sign of the covenant still stands as a witness against me if I am ever unfaithful to my God. And it will surely witness the frailty of a weary heart.

The Christian life is one of great cost. It has cost me so much that the world will never see. There is never a moment when I don't feel the loss. In the midst of my Oxford bliss, joy, and unexplainable excitement, my heart is breaking. I've learned the importance of "emotional discipline" - the living of one's life in the midst of emotional struggle. I used to be a slave to my emotions in a way that was dreadfully unhealthy, but God in his grace delivered me of that lifelong bondage. I have learned the freedom of the cross, and of what it means to live as a daughter of the Most High.

But emotional discipline doesn't dismiss the struggles of the heart. The heart never sleeps. If the heart is breaking, you never cease to feel it. Life has never been more amazing and beautiful than it is right now. But in the Spirit of God, I have chosen to love, and with such a choice there is brokenness. When you make that choice without looking back, it costs you everything. I counted the cost, and in obedience to God, I chose it. And daily I feel the bitterness of that choice. But I have set my hand to the plough, and I cannot turn back. I have chosen that which is good, and I cannot release it. I have chosen to follow the Lord with all of my heart, for this is what he has required of me. Here I stand; I can do nothing else. Blessed be the Name of the LORD.