When God Leads You Wrong...

Boy, I sure like provocative titles, don't I? But haven't you felt that way before?

One of the most disheartening things to me is when I am certain that God is leading me a specific way and it fails. The blame must fall squarely in one of two areas. Either the blame falls on me (e.g. "I wasn't faithful enough", or "If I had only done X-Y-Z, then..." or "I must have misunderstood God's leading", etc.), or the blame falls on God.

I have reacted by placing blame in each place depending on the specifics of different situations. Sometimes I waiver back and forth, staging a mental debate trying to figure out where to place the blame. I never feel settled in my decision either. In the end, I feel hurt, confused, dissatisfied, and utterly alone.

When I was a young teen, I was at a church where I felt that the youth (kids my age and older) didn't have much direction or attention at the church. I felt as though more needed to happen, and I was bursting with passion and ideas. I wrote out a long email to the pastor explaining my vision and asking for permission to use the church building to host what I envisioned. I was going to lead it. I thought about it for weeks. I talked about it, I made flyers, I prayed about it, it seemed like the fulfillment of the use of my gifts, talents and passions in meeting a very specific, felt need.

The night of the event, a handful of the teens showed up. We gathered together and I tried to get everyone to quiet down so they could listen to my hope for the group, and for us to begin in the planned activities. That didn't happen. Just as quickly as this vision had built up, I saw it slipping from me. My words weren't heard. I was talked over. Before I knew it, all the teens were playing "Hide and Seek in the Dark" at the church building. I was crushed. I felt invalidated. I felt worse about myself, hopeless to the hope that I was certain God put in me. Obviously God would want a group like the one I envisioned to exist, I thought.

What went wrong?

Well, "If I was more assertive", I first thought. "I just need to persevere - isn't that what the Bible says?"

But I didn't try it again. I was crushed. As much as I felt my faith wanted me to martyr myself, I didn't have it in me. It failed. Plain and simple. Could it have gone differently? More than a decade years later as I reflect, I can say, "No." I don't think that a group of kids, mostly older than me, mostly male, mostly far less mature than I, would ever care about the idea that I, a pre-teen quiet little girl, envisioned. And even if they could, I couldn't make them.

But what about God's direction? What about the certainty I felt that God was leading me?

I still believe that God would have wanted what I envisioned. Sure! It was a beautiful picture. Such beauty and hope comes from God's heart. But maybe God's leading isn't always as we've imagined it.

This is one of many scenarios where I felt that God put His own hopes in me, just for them to be dashed before my face. I have grown tired of placing blame. There have been times where I have bypassed the question of blame altogether to ask the bigger question, "Where is God in all this? Does he even lead me or is this all in my head? Does he care about his own dreams for the world? Does he care about my struggle? Why would God dangle this hope in front of me to just snatch it away?" I realized that placing blame on myself led me to always feel guilty. I never felt like I did enough. I felt like I failed everything that God specifically led me to. I felt like a horrible Christian and like a horrible person.

Again, over the years my faith has changed. Guilt isn't so much a factor. It's still default more than I care for it to be. But now, I try not to assume the blame. I allow the feeling of the need to blame to lead me to ask questions, even of God. Questions that years ago I would have felt made me unfaithful. These days, I don't think there are any questions that are "off the table" where God is concerned. And I think he himself would have it that way.

So what about these instances where "God leads us wrong"?

Where I'm settling for now is maybe too simplified, and many of you may disagree with it. That's fine. But my take is simply this:

God has created us beautifully with different passions. These passions lead us different places. And if we are the kind of people that are inclined to consider God's desires, we tend to share the same hopes he does. The hopes we have because of our faith and the passions that we've either been born with or have grown into, lead us to new places. This pairing (which often feels like very direct divine leading) leads us to make decisions and to take risks. And like the parable of the three men who are given sums of money, I believe God (the master in the parable) is pleased by our taking risks, regardless of whether the world, the church, anyone around us, or even we ourselves are ready for it.

And in failure or success, we grow. The challenge is to not let your hopes be dashed and your passions squandered for lack of trying. Even when faced with the same seeming "failures" over and over again. But really, aren't you better for trying? I trust that the anyone watching us is too.

I recognize that this isn't perhaps the answer you were looking for. Maybe it's not really an answer at all. But this conclusion has brought me great peace and is beginning to bring some closure to all kinds of situations like this in my past. And I think my self-image and faith are healthier for it. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have reached this result without encountering so many "failures" over my life. How about that?