I’m damned if I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.
This was the final thought that settled the year-and-a-half debate within, and just like that leaving no room for further hesitation, I stepped out into the wilderness.
I could tell you of how much more than “just that” went into the decision but it seems there are just such things in life that we are compelled to be, do and believe, for reasons that are often unknowable and imperceptible in those moments.
No matter how many times I have read the accounts of the Christ, I am always astonished at the insanity the disciples display when a stranger passing by the lake or road says “follow me” and they leave everything, including their families, and follow him. And what of Peter who dared to leave the safety of a boat to walk on water?
My father used to say that all humans essentially live by faith. He called it common faith. The faith that when we sleep we will wake with the sun. The faith that when we leave home we will return at the end of the day. The faith that when we enter vehicles, they will transport us safely to and from our destinations. That when we step off the bed, the ground will hold our weight. The faith that when we inhale, sufficient life-giving breath will surely fill our lungs.
When I ponder all these things, it seems a shame that we should ascribe them as common when they are nothing but glorious displays of God’s faithfulness to reward unwavering faith. Yes, God is faithful and He rewards faith for without faith, we cannot please Him.
Incidentally, most of these things we take for granted are such things as are completely out of our control yet come to be by God’s invisible hand in an ever-awesome display of His power over things that no man can boast of.
The conclusion of my year and a half wrestle brought me to sense and recognition that my faithless existence is foolishness.
But then again, no human exists without complete trust or confidence in something or someone. As I found out, those who lose faith soon drift towards self-annihilation. And that is the perilous path for all who continue to trust in finite and fickle structures.
By grace, I was enlightened to the volatility of founding complete confidence in humans, things, and possessions. It began when, in the blink of an eye, my parent’s mansion and all the possessions they worked hard for turned to nothingness as grenades and bullets rained down on our home in Rwanda.
Later, family, friends, and boys disappointed. Then money’s coyness frustrated. All these things I’d esteemed left me feeling tossed about, and completely insecure about everything and everyone. It was at this time that the Word came to me by the Holy Spirit from the Word heard long ago:
Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the wilderness.
These words sounded familiar and in seeking, I found them in the epic story of Israel’s exodus from the oppression in Egypt. For months I read and studied this historical account and found astonishing parallels to my own suffering, and I dare say the suffering most humans live with.
Like the Israelites, upon birth, I had come to a foreign land where various forms of idolatry were practiced, the greatest being servitude to Mammon, aka Money. At the time of “The Call” I was a zealot to King Cash-Money. Oh yes, more than anything I wanted all the things Money could grant: cars, houses, clothes, and illicit sex (this is in fact the honest want when we allow lust to manifest in fornication). I just wanted to be this kind of “successful”, which according to modern humanity’s culture is the measure of success. For many years I devoted my whole heart to pursuing money and the confidence it gave me. I relished the feeling that I could take care of myself, splurging on whatever pleasures my flesh desired.
Like most of modern humanity and the Israelites before us, I forgot this fundamental law declared long ago in the Prophet Moses’ admonition. I forgot God, followed culture’s prescribed gods, and worshiped them.
Worship is the greatest activity mankind and angels wholly do. In thoughts, words, and deeds, we worship. No, worship is not only the singing that happens at religious services – although it does include singing, whether in church or Hip Hop, Rock n Roll, and other secular institutions. It is essentially ascribing the highest value, worth, priority, and devotion of our breath, time and resources to something or someone.
With this revelation, I could not deny the call that came to me inviting me into the wilderness so that I may repent my idolatry and discover true worship to the only One whom all praise is due.
In the fullness of time, events that I simply cannot explain aligned such that I relented from several months’ wrestling and conceded to handing in my resignation and stepped into the wilderness – a crazy move that invoked utter astonishment from colleagues, family, and friends.
Though mouths pronounced felicitations, eyes and words betrayed bewilderment: why is she doing this, leaving a job that pays her so generously, way above any market rate of a similar position? Who in their right mind does that?
Soaring high from my brazen faith leap, none of these concerns could touch me.
But alas, it didn’t take long for the verdict to conclude that maybe I had indeed been possessed by a great and terrible madness to leave the security of a very well-paying job for…Bible study?
How would immersing in the Word daily make up for the insane hourly rate I could have earned in my job? How would drowning my soul in devotional pursuits pay the bills and satisfy the comforts my lucrative salary had afforded me?
Nevertheless, my soul thirsted for more than money can buy, and often any niggling worries were quenched as I’d remember that money had been sinking sand.
The time came, however, when all of the savings I had stored up for what I predicted should only be no more than eighteen months of wilderness ran out and I was undone.
With no cent left to latch on, I desperately clung to faith in the Word who called me out into this arid place – and to be honest, I was ashamed to go back to Egypt begging.
I was left with no other option than to resolve to see the reward of my reckless modeling of those disciples who also left everything at the Master’s call to follow him, not knowing where he would lead them or what encounters they would meet along the way.
Since the beginning, faith remains the wrestle of humanity’s existence. Over the ages, quarrels persist as one man’s faith contends with another’s. Everyone’s faith comes from hearing, whether from esteemed scholars, close companions, traditions, or popular culture. We are all free to choose to what or in whom we assign our complete trust and confidence.
As for me, all else before the pursuit of Christ fell short, whether in reliability or sensibility.
Now, I would like to end here with a glorious announcement that I am rolling around in the milk and honey of the Promised Land but considering the Israelites were in the wilderness for forty years, my diligent focus is to navigate wisely, not following the wrong turns they did. But even this has been incredibly adventuresome because I have been revealed to be just like, if not worse than them!
Several times I have yearned to return to Egypt. Countless times I have murmured. I’m even ashamed to say that within the wilderness I found idols to which I turned to worship, for a time.
But praise be to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in whose power is at work in me by his Holy Spirit, and under his grace, I am provisioned with strength, joy, and peace surpassing all understanding. Daily I am sufficiently cared for and have lacked nothing. Instead gain all the best things in life that money, cars, houses, clothes, and empty sex could never hope to offer!
And best of all, my time in the wilderness has brought me to complete persuasion that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only solid rock on which a strong and meaningful life of truth, love, righteousness, peace, and joy may be built.
The cost remains crazy stupid faith that voluntarily casts all caution into the wind and free-falls into the unseen Everlasting Arms that uphold all things by the Word of His power.
In the falling, I have tasted, seen, and proved that God is scandalously faithful to “command his angels concerning us, and they will lift us up in their hands, so that we will not strike our foot against a stone.’”
Who wouldn’t want to invest complete trust and place all confidence in such a One who is faithful and has only good intentions toward us?
Me, I’ll follow him to the ends of the earth.
What about you, won’t you come along? In Abba’s kingdom, the more the merrier!
xoxo
Nimi
Kingdom Purposed Daughter 
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