The more I journey with God the more I see that whenever God desires to take us to new places, there will always be pushback. Such pushback comes in a variety of forms: Through the bureaucratic red tape that every organisation has nowadays. Through the voices of others around us. Through the annoying situations that just seem to twist and turn and not quite go the way they should.

Pushback. It always happens when God starts to take us to new places, because Satan doesn’t want us to gain any ground. But God says otherwise:

“Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.”

God is in the habit of gaining ground. In fact whenever He takes us to new places, it is really Him gaining the ground, for He goes ahead of us by His Spirit. We are merely the human inhabitants doing His will.

Yet the pushback occurs.

But God pushes back too. And we find that in what we often experienced as pushback – which may be quite challenging – was actually an opportunity for God to overrule and create something better.

Whilst we may have questions, many questions about what God is doing and why and who and what we are in all of it, we still see that he overrules it all.

He can take Satan’s meddling and reframe it, by drawing together all the sidesteps, and backroads, and ‘wrong way go back’ and weave it all together into something that somehow, eventually, all makes sense.

As believers, we hand ourselves over to God to be used in His service. When we start querying ‘the direction of the surrender’ we have to trust that God has a reason and a plan and that He is actually working to lift us higher, to see as He sees. Even though it might feel like we’re wading through the mud.

God can save anyone, no matter who they are or what they’ve done. But maybe He wants to use us to help them come to know Him. That might take us through experiences that we’d prefer to not have.  The experiences might be unpleasant and we might look like a fool.

As I was writing this post the very famous advertising line from L’Oreal came to mind: “Because you’re worth it”.

Apparently, this slogan was originally used in the 1970s as pushback against the male dominated perspectives usually surrounding makeup advertising. That is, ‘wear makeup so that you look pretty for the blokes.’

The pushback says, “No. You’re worth it. Others’ voices may have said you were worthless, but that’s not true at all. You’re worth it.”

How much more so then God? And the proclamation of His gospel? And the eternal destination of souls?

It will all be worth it. Because they’re worth it.

Sure, it might make the ones bringing the gospel look silly. It might lead us up highways and byways we don’t want in our life. It might bring pushback and delay when we’d prefer to be putting it all up into fifth gear, placing the foot on the accelerator and leaving it on there.

If God is taking us to a new place, bringing outsiders in and weaving all things together to His glory through our lives, then I guess we have to remember that the pushback is worth it.

Even if we don’t enjoy it at the time. Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Yours the smiling fool,

Alison