He Directs our Steps

~ Penned by Kristy Ziolkowski

Dare I admit out loud that often I enjoy participating in what feels like an active rebellion or repentance against pretense?  

I wander around my messy house with my mismatched clothes and unkempt hair. 

I venture out the front door, with an unwashed face and coffee breath, meandering down the street with my husband and our lazy dog.

Thankful to live in the freedom of not needing to keep up with the Joneses, not needing to dress to impress, not needing to keep anyone's high opinion, but instead breathing deeply.  

I’m grateful to be small, merely human. Grateful for the freedom to be weak, limited, imperfect, dependent…  Grateful to be like a child, steady and secure, not because of my own competence, wisdom, talent, or accolades. But because I'm held by a strong, kind, perfect Father. 

And whether one day after another unfolds as I thought it would, I find myself not alone, not without help, not without the direction that I need for that moment, not without the one who gives me breath and sustains my heartbeat, not without the one who is my dearest friend, my joy and my hiding place, the one who has made me a beloved daughter… 

I carry this hope inside my unimpressive life, full of peace and hope and anticipation of His sufficiency for every bit of what every moment will hold today and forever.

I carry this hope that we are all hungry for, and he makes a way to share it, unexpectedly, specifically, uniquely. As God so relentlessly interacts with this world that He created to love.

We make our plans, but He directs our steps. 

Season after season I hear these words in my ears… “Do not say tomorrow I will go this way or that, but instead if the Lord wills…”

So we hold each interaction and opportunity, each idea and dream with open hands, believing that we can live in the peace of surrender because when we put it all in his hands, He will only do good things! 

He only makes beauty out of every single thing we give back to him. 

And so, as the days unfold, as we step out in faith, as we listen to his voice and follow his lead, we find ourselves in a different space than we originally envisioned. A beautiful and humble space, one bursting with life, diversity, strength, resilience, need, pain, hope, opportunity…

Jesus is here, and that is enough. That's why we came, just to be where He is. To live with his very life, speaking and leading, moving and reaching, in and through ours. 

As we hold each season with open hands, Jesus started opening new doors before we even knew we needed them… we are grateful for all that has been, and the fruit that God has born of it, relationships that have been built, partnerships that have been made, worship, meals, conversations, prayers, that have been shared. 

As Jesus clarifies that our time in the Rivercrest building has come to an end, we say, “Thank you and bless you, brothers and sisters!  We look forward to the opportunities to love and spur one another on, in the days ahead, in different ways than we expected. Trusting that His ways, thoughts, and plans are higher than ours.”

As we look back on this year and a half of walking closely with the beautiful team at Transitional Youth/ Braking Cycles, we're so grateful for all that God has done and is continuing to do.  Grateful for what we've learned, the friendships that we've made, and the ways that God will continue to use all of it, we step back here too, and say, “Thank you and bless you!”  

We turn our attention to the joy and the work set before us, of pressing into gathering as a new, local expression of Jesus' bride, to worship, learn, grow, commune, to spur on and be spurred on to continue to live as missionaries here, seeking the good of the city where we have been planted, knowing that it is his will that his kingdom would come and his will would be done on Earth as it is in heaven.   It is his heart that in the welfare of the places that we're planted, we would find our welfare. 

So in this next season of following Jesus, as the one and only, perfect head of His church, we take another new step of faith, knowing that he never fails, even when His plans look different than we thought they would, He is only good in everything He does.

He pours out Glory, which turns into worship and rejoicing, which is our very thriving. So we continue to say, “Let it be done unto us as you have said, for your plans are perfect and trustworthy, because your heart is perfect and trustworthy. Jesus, lead us wherever you are, because wherever you are, is where we want to be!!”