Replacing Wandering with Following

         

        I have never been a follower.

I have always been very opinionated about the “right” way to do anything, and I will go that way regardless of what anyone else is doing.

I’ve never been one to follow the crowd- and this was often to my detriment in high school when I was mercilessly teased and even bullied for not doing what my peers were doing. And while the hurtful words of my classmates certainly left their mark on my mental health, I never questioned whether or not I should give up going my own way.

I have found that in motherhood, I am much the same way. Many of my friends became mothers before me, so I have been aware of what is “trendy” or “popular” in parenting when it comes to sleeping, feeding, and teaching my son. Sometimes, what I know to be best for him and our family falls in line with one of these methodologies, but other times, I’m doing completely different things from what my friends did. When it comes to parenting, I’m a firm believer in doing what works for your family, so if that happens to be something that follows mainstream parenting, then that’s what you should do. But doing those things because everyone else is doing them? That’s never been my thing.

Here’s the thing about not being a follower though: just because I’m doing what feels right to me doesn’t always mean it’s the “right” thing to do, especially when it comes to what God wants for our lives. What we think of as doing the right thing in our own minds ends up being more like wandering aimlessly through the desert.

This is what the beginning of my journey with trying to conceive, which ultimately resulted in miscarriage and infertility, was like. And funnily enough, it all started with a book that all my friends were reading. In a move that was wildly unlike my normal response, I asked one of my friends for a copy of this book. My main motivation for wanting to read this book was fear. I struggled with a fear of not being able to have a baby long before I even met my husband, let alone before we were married and trying to conceive. Getting married at 32 didn’t help matters, as I already felt like I was way behind schedule. I also saw a friend struggle to conceive, experience a miscarriage, and then finally get pregnant after reading this book, in addition to numerous other friends who got pregnant fairly easily and quickly after reading it. All of this added up to me following my friends’ leads and getting sucked into this book’s methods.

Now, in all honesty, this book is a great book. It is rooted in the science of a woman’s biology. I learned so much about how my body works that I had no clue about, so that by itself was an important thing for me to do. But what happened as a result of me reading this book, and more truthfully as a result of seeing its methods work so easily for my friends, was that 1) I became obsessed with all the tracking and temperature taking and monitoring that this method involves and 2) the longer I did this without result, the more I bought into the lies that Satan whispered in my ear every month: this worked for everyone else but not for you; you’re broken, you’re unworthy, you’re not meant to be a mom.

What started out as a seemingly clear and solid plan for having a baby ended up actually being a wandering through Google searches and late night article reading and lists of questions trying to figure out what was wrong with me. And while none of that is wrong- I certainly needed to consult medical professionals and ask questions to help determine why I might not be able to get pregnant- I was in a position where I was willing to consult every single possible source of a solution instead of turn to the Person who was truly going to guide me through this season.

Because, looking back, where I was really wandering the most was in my spiritual life and in my mental health. Yes, I was searching for medical answers to my body’s struggle to conceive, but those Google searches were leading to articles from plenty of noncredible sources that messed with my mind and provided false hope. If I had stopped all that wandering, I would have been able to focus on God’s path for me to a qualified fertility doctor, who was the only person I really should’ve been listening to when it came to my situation.

The anxiety of infertility can cause us to try to find our own way through. We end up wandering around looking for the best path through our struggle, and it ultimately causes us more strife than it truly helps.

How do we begin to leave our path of wandering and follow God’s way for us? The first mention of the word “follow” paints a clear picture. The story comes from Genesis 24, where Abraham is “old and well stricken in age” (Genesis 24:1 KJV). I find this description humorous, considering God didn’t bless Abraham and Sarah with a son until he was 100 years old! But now Abraham is really old and wants to make sure his son Isaac has an appropriate wife, so he calls his senior servant to him and asks him to swear to God that he will not get Isaac a wife from Canaan, but instead go to Abraham’s home country and find Isaac a wife among their relatives.

Before we’ve even reached the use of the word “follow,” Abraham demonstrates a strong desire to make sure Isaac doesn’t end up wandering. Asking his servant not to find Isaac a wife among the Canaanites was his way of protecting Isaac from being exposed to the pagan ways of this people, which would have tempted Isaac to wander from his faithfulness to the one, true God. We see many examples of this in Scripture, where God’s people intermarried with the pagan people they lived among, causing them to worship idols and turn away from God.

Today’s world is filled with just as many temptations. We may not worship images made of gold or wood, but we sure worship idols made of technology and even flesh and blood. The stuff we accumulate, the people we put on a pedestal, the information that’s at our fingertips- all of it has the ability to tempt us to wander away from our worship in God.

Abraham’s servant is concerned about how to bring a woman back from Abraham’s home country: “[what if] the woman will not be willing to follow me unto this land…?” (Genesis 24:5 KJV). Abraham warns the servant not to take Isaac to his home country, because where they are living is the land God promised them. Instead, God will send an angel to make sure the servant brings back the right woman and if she will not follow, Abraham will release the servant from his oath.

What I find incredibly interesting about the Hebrew word used here is that its definitions include both the person following: “go, walk, come, proceed, move,” and the person leading: “lead, bring, lead away, carry, cause to walk.” This action is a partnership that requires action by both parties involved! Just as much as the person who’s following needs to do that work, so does the person who’s leading the way. God gives us a good example in Abraham’s servant and Isaac’s eventual wife Rebekah.

When the servant arrives in Abraham’s home country, his first move is not to look for a wife for Isaac; first, he prays to God, asking that He grant him success. Then, almost instantaneously, Rebekah comes walking up, doing just as the servant prayed she would to indicate to him that she’s the one. The servant was worried about being able to lead, so he first followed God. When he is later telling Rebekah’s family how he came to find her, he says, “I praised the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has led me on the right road to get the granddaughter of my master’s brother for his son” (Genesis 24:48b KJV). The Hebrew word here is all on God: “lead, guide, bring.” God did all the work to make sure the servant found a wife for Isaac. So even though he is meant to lead Rebekah back to Abraham and Isaac, he is first following God’s lead.

Upon hearing this story, Rebekah’s family allows her to go with the servant, “and Rebekah arose, and her damsels, and they rode upon camels, and followed the man” (Genesis 24:61a KJV). The Hebrew here is the same as verse 5, where the action required is a partnership. Just as the servant and Rebekah are both responsible for the actions here, one leading and one proceeding after, we are required to act in order to follow God’s lead, just as the servant did in this story.

Want to know something beautiful about the word “follow” in Scripture? The word appears in 84 verses in the Bible- and 50 of those are in the New Testament, after the birth of Jesus. In my opinion this can only be because the ultimate Leader had come to us, and there is no one else that we should follow but Him.

I studied so many examples of the word “follow” from the New Testament, especially from the Gospels. I wish I had time to share them all with you. I’ll leave a little list here of some so you can peek at them on your own:

• Matthew 4:19 and Mark 1:17-18, Luke 5:11→ the calling of Peter, Andrew, James and John to follow Jesus as his disciples

• Matthew 9:9, Mark 2:14, Luke 5:27 → the calling of Matthew to follow Jesus as his disciple

• John 1:43 → the calling of Philip to follow Jesus

• Matthew 16:24, Mark 8:34, Mark 10:21, Luke 9:23 → Jesus teaches that the disciple must take up their cross and follow him

• John 10:4 → Jesus teaches that sheep know the shepherd’s voice and follow it

Instead, the last Scripture I want to discuss is from 1 Peter 2. In this letter, Peter is writing to believers across many lands, who are ironically living among a pagan society (remember Abraham’s fears about a Canaanite wife for Isaac?). He mentions a multitude of things they need to keep in mind while living among these people, including abstaining from sin and submitting to human authorities, in order to live free as God’s slaves.

Then he asks a question: “But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it?” (1 Peter 2:20a NIV). We obviously don’t see much good in that, because being punished for doing wrong is what we expect. But then Peter shows us the reality of God’s economy: “But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God” (20b). God will honor us if we endure our suffering.

So how do we get through these experiences in order to be honored by God? How do we endure the suffering of miscarriage and infertility? How do we endure the struggle of anxiety in pregnancy after these traumas? How do we endure the hardships of motherhood- because it IS hard, no matter how much we love it-?

“To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21 NIV).

The Greek here means, “follow close upon, follow after, tread in one’s footsteps, to imitate his example, to go before.” Just like the Hebrew we looked at, this action is a partnership- we don’t have to do the following on our own. Jesus goes before us, setting the example of suffering well, so that we can follow closely after, tread in His footsteps and imitate His example.

When we are able to replace our wandering, our relying on earthly examples to get us through hard times, with following Jesus, it allows us to give the task of finding the way to Him. Then we can focus on the joy of the journey.

Even in the struggle, journeying with Jesus is a joy. Because we don’t have to go it alone. We don’t have to figure out where to go by ourselves. If we are following Jesus, we have a companion who understands our suffering and is leading us and cheering us on.