Uncharted

My first year at the University of Alabama, Bridget and I exchanged gifts on her birthday (our birthdays are 18 days apart in September). In hilarity, but thinking the same, we both gave each other Sara Bareilles’s new album Kaleidoscope Heart.

One of our favorite songs on the album, Uncharted, described so clearly how I felt about where Holy Spirit was leading me with Cultivate Life.

The lyrics read:

Oh, I'm going down

Follow if you want, I won't just hang around

Like you'll show me where to go

I'm already out

A foolproof idea, so don't ask me how

To get started, it's all uncharted

Still somewhat new to the journey of hearing Holy Spirit’s voice and following, I knew deep down the ideas and revelation he was instilling in me would cement themselves like a foundation for the rest of my life.

Today, almost 16 years later, Uncharted shuffled onto my playlist at the gym and I thought to myself, “Life was much simpler when it was all uncharted.”

In 2010, there was a child-like bliss to following wherever Holy Spirit led. My following didn’t feel like a responsibility yet. Instead, it felt like a giant, spectacular puzzle I was constantly solving. He’d hand me the clues for one specific idea or revelation, I’d do my best to painstakingly piece them together, and then, finally I’d see something magnificent manifest before my eyes in ways I could’ve never imagined.

Today, life is still like this. Except there are thousands of clues and multiple revelations building at once. Also, there is less room for error because now I have the understanding and wisdom for the roadmap of unpacking revelation. I didn’t have this when I was starting out.

Plus, living spirit forward in a world that is constantly asking me to live soul forward is challenging. Constantly choosing to rise above the noise and follow wherever Holy Spirit is asking is a chore. It’s almost so exhausting that I don’t even consider the exhaustion anymore when he hands me the next assignment. Instead, I ask a bunch of questions (one must be fully debriefed), and then I go forward with the confidence and courage he’s instilled inside of me over the many years of following.

In this specific moment of my life, the uncharted path seems to be hitting a crescendo though. The clues for the multiple puzzles I’m piecing together are very prominent. They give an undertone of, “THIS is what we’ve been piecing together all along.” I am confident that the undertone I hear is correct. I am certain deep within me that it is boisterous because Holy Spirit is calling me higher—he is asking that I would in fact be more than I am right now.

And while the higher reality that’s pieced itself together makes sense; I am left to wonder how this uncharted path will open up as I fully embrace the revelation in front of me. Will I finally arrive at promises long hoped for? Will there be magnificence, power, and glory finally expressed in ways my very human mind cannot fathom? And, most importantly, will I have the wisdom, maturity, and strength to navigate what He’s given me authority over?

My heart is asking all of these questions.

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