All Roads Lead to Jesus

I think it’s time to share a little of my testimony.

Hi, I’m Katie, and I had an unplanned pregnancy.

Did God intend I walk down the road of this unexpected pregnancy?

I know sex is designed to be kept within a marriage bed. It was a one-night stand that resulted in an awesome kid and walking a road that was as dry as a desert and dark as the wilderness at midnight. 

I’m not sure how to dissect this life event. Like so much of life, it is complicated and beautiful. As Heidi would say, it’s altogether beautiful, sin-and-redemption kind of beautiful.

The roads we walk are filled with wildernesses, sometimes we cause on our own and other times there are those caused by those around us, still more often…both. But the reason behind the struggle is always the same – sin in us, sin in the world around us. 

Today, I can see that God used this road for His glory. He knows our paths, and He knows how to use our messes for His good. Ten years ago, I was asking God why He allowed my pregnancy to happen. I even had the audacity to ask why He did this to me. I did something once and ended up pregnant. I love my son dearly, but ten years ago I was asking God to take this road away from me. I couldn’t handle being a single mother. 

Do you have roads of self-created wilderness or dry desert seasons you can look back on in your life and see the faithfulness of God? 

 The Book of Judges is filled with people creating their own desert roads and then suffering in the wilderness created by others, on repeat:

The people do what was evil in the sight of the Lord.

The Lord disciplines them and gives them over to slavery.

The people find themselves on a desert road at the hands of others.

The people cry out for help and God saves them.

It’s complicated and hard.

God uses the complicated and the hard to shape the road that leads us to Jesus.

Within this wheel of doing evil, discipline, desert roads, and crying out to God, we find the account a woman named Deborah, who we are told is a prophetess, and a man named Barak, who we are told is the army leader for Israel. The Israelites at the time “did what as evil in the sight of the Lord” according to Judges 4:1 (big surprise there) and then were oppressed for 20 years under another nation before crying out to God.

What oppresses you in this life?

We are oppressed by our own worry. 

We are oppressed by the cycle of our sin.

We are oppressed by our desire for more and better things.

We are oppressed by someone else’s needs, weighing in on us.

The Israelites’ oppression was people and leadership and ungodliness. 

Deborah tells Barak it’s time to do something different. 

Sometimes, the hardest thing we’ll ever do is to identify we need to do something different.

Barak is afraid of the battle. 

Deborah knows the truth:

All roads lead to Jesus.

Sometimes, we need someone like Deborah in our lives. Often, we need those people to remind us that anything we do, is really the Lord’s work in us. Often, we need those people to tell us that all of this life is for His glory not our own. We need people to point at the road we are walking and point God out, point His Word out, point us back to His face rather than our own.

Whatever the complications of our lives, we can call out to God. 

Whatever the complication on your road, dear friend, you can call out to Him.

Your prayer may sound ridiculous like mine when you look back in ten years, but just pray it anyway. He has not abandoned you. His faithfulness is not about our behavior or anyone else’s.   

And then … sometimes … there’s the D-word.

Discipline can feel like a dirty word to me. How about you? 

Scripture tells us that discipline is all about love. Discipline is not about hate or wrath. Discipline is about learning who God is and sinking deeper into the knowledge that God is for us. 

Those who are in the family of God will receive discipline. All of us. No one is excluded from it. 

Here is what the bible says about discipline:

“Our fathers disciplined us for a short time as they thought best, but God disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”

Being in a difficult place does not mean you are excluded from the family of God. Our Father knows it’s complicated, but, most importantly, He sees Jesus when He sees us. 

“Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary of faintheartedness...” Hebrews 12:3

“Jesus has been counted worthy…” Hebrews 3:3 

Consider Jesus … remember all He has endured for you. There is no punishment, no condemnation in Christ, only love. I wish I would have understood this passage ten years ago. Ten years ago, if I heard the word discipline, I would have equated it with punishment. Punishment is associated with wrath. Discipline is done out of love. Disciple is done by a father.

The Israelites had this cycle of disobedience and discipline their whole lives. When we walk the road with them, by reading Judges, or by reading any part of the Old Testament, the cycle begins to sound all too familiar. But God ensured for Israel that all of their roads led to Jesus, and it is the same for us. 

In Judges 5, Deborah sings:

“Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes;
    to the Lord I will sing;
    I will make melody to the Lord, the God of Israel.” verse 3

All roads lead to Jesus.

Up Next - For Reasons Unclear

In the Meantime - Learn more about Katie and follow her blog at lovedinspiteofself.com