One of the most impactful books I’ve ever read is Hinds Feet on High Places. Someone, early on in my faith journey, had recommended it to me - I can’t even remember who - and it’s been one of those books that has stuck with me through the years.
The story follows Much Afraid, on her journey with the Good Shepherd, to the high places. Much Afraid is a character that believes, but isn’t fully invested. All she wants is healed legs, and at a chance encounter with the Good Shepherd, He promises her that if she follows him through to the high places, she will be healed. So we go on a journey with her through the deserts, wildernesses and mountains to her fulfilled promise. She partners with Sorrow and Suffering to climb the mountain. Has moments of absolute frustration and utter joy. And then she makes it, and is transformed into Grace-and-Glory.
Much Afraid’s story is a story of obedience and breakthrough. And it is one that has resonated with me through every season. I’m probably not doing it justice, but I highly recommend picking it up or listening to it.
The reason I bring up Hinds Feet on High Places is that there are several portions of it that come to mind when I think about the road of obedience.
I think sometimes we do the word a disservice, and we can paint it as this beautiful, fluffy thing. As if all it is is a momentary yes.
A lot of times, at least for me, obedience looks messy. It looks hard. It looks like a momentary yes - but a return to that yes to remind myself of what God has spoken, why a yes to Him is better than a yes to any desire I may have outside of Him, and, if I’m being honest, moments like Job where I wrestle with God. Obedience to me can look like a constricting throat, a pounding chest, doubt and fear. And sometimes, obedience can look like walking into something without my feelings following it.
Recently, I’ve felt the Lord shift some things for me and start to speak to me about certain plans He has for me. Plans that, if I’m being totally honest, seem to contradict every thing I’ve ever felt called to or felt that He’s spoken over me.
Last week I was processing through some things with Him, and this portion of Hinds Feet came to mind:
“She stopped dead and said to them, ‘We mustn’t go down there. The Shepherd has called me to the High Places. We must find some path which goes up, but certainly not down there.” But they made signs to her that she was to follow them down the steep pathway to the desert below.
Much-Afraid looked to left and right, but though it seemed incredible, there was no way possible by which they could continue to climb upward. The hill they were on ended abruptly at this precipice, and the rocky cliffs towered above them in every direction straight as walls with no possible foothold.
“I can’t go down there,” panted Much-Afraid, sick with shock and fear. “He can never mean that-never! He called me up to the High Places, and this is an absolute contradiction of all that he promised.’
She then lifted up her voice and called desperately, “Shepherd, come to me. Oh, I need you. Come and help me.”
In a moment he was there, standing beside her.
“Shepherd,” she said despairingly, “I can’t understand this. The guides you gave me say that we must go down there into that desert, turning right away from the High Places altogether. You don’t mean that, do you? You can’t contradict yourself. Tell them we are not to go there, and show us another way. Make a way for us, Shepherd, as you promised.”
He looked at her and answered very gently, “That is the path, Much-Afraid, and you are to go down there.”
“Oh, no,” she cried. “You can’t mean it. You said if I would trust you, you would bring me to the High Places, and that path leads right away from them. It contradicts all that you promised.”
“No,” said the Shepherd, “it is not contradiction, only postponement for the best to become possible.”
Much-Afraid felt as though he had stabbed her to the heart. “You mean,” she said incredulously, “you really mean that I am to follow that path down and down into that wilderness and then over that desert, away from the mountains indefinitely? Why” (and there was a sob of anguish in her voice) “it may be months, even years, before that path leads back to the mountains again. O Shepherd, do you mean it is indefinite postponement?”
He bowed his head silently, and Much-Afraid sank on her knees at his feet, almost overwhelmed. He was leading her away from her heart’s desire altogether and gave no promise at all as to when he would bring her back. As she looked out over what seemed an endless desert, the only path she could see led farther and farther away from the High Places, and it was all desert.
Then he answered very quietly, “Much-Afraid, do you love me enough to accept the postponement and the apparent contradiction of the promise, and to go down there with me into the desert?”
She was still crouching at his feet, sobbing as if her heart would break, but now she looked up through her tears, caught his hand in hers, and said, trembling, “I do love you, you know that I love you. Oh, forgive me because I can’t help my tears. I will go down with you into the wilderness, right away from the promise, if you really wish it. Even if you cannot tell me why it has to be, I will go with you, for you know I do love you, and you have the right to choose for me anything that you please.”
Gosh. This part. It always hits me right in my feels.
I think because it portrays obedience so beautifully and poignantly.
God’s ways are not my ways. And a lot of times what I define as obedience or as the timeline for a promise is the exact opposite of what God determines. In an Amazon Prime world, I want the character to sustain the promise and the promise fulfilled in approximately 2-5 business days.
But that is very rarely the case.
Many times, my timeline and God’s timeline clash together in a moment like Much-Afraid and the Shepherd. Him guiding her away from the perceived immediacy of a promise, not out of punishment, but for “the best to become possible.”
I’m in a season right now where it feels like God is leading me in the opposite direction of the promises he has spoken over me and there has had to be a real reckoning and processing. While I don’t know that I’m being led into a desert, I do feel Jesus saying to me “Alessandra, do you love me enough to accept the postponement and the apparent contradiction of the promise, and to go down there with me into the desert?”
And, like Much-Afraid, with trembling hands and lips I’m standing before Him saying “I will go down with you into the wilderness, right away from the promise, if you really wish it. Even if you can’t tell me why, I’ll go with you. For you know I love you, and you have the right to choose for me anything you please.”
My friends, sometimes obedience is a joyful and celebratory yes. Other times, our obedience is a tear-filled moment of apparent contradiction.
But you want to know the beauty of it? Much-Afraid makes it to the high places, she gets healed and gets new legs from the Shepherd, and she is renamed Grace-and-Glory. It is the character that is developed in her through the desert and wilderness seasons, through the apparent contradiction of obedience, that enables her to make it. It’s the stones of remembrance she picks up along the way to remind her of the Shepherd’s never ending faithfulness. These moments of apparent contradiction allow for deeper intimacies with the Shepherd. And these moments ultimately lead her to not crave the healing for herself, but to show others how good and faithful the Shepherd really is.
My friend - do you want a promise fulfilled because of a desire for that thing? Or do you want a promise fulfilled to bring glory to God?
It’s a hard question to answer. Because I sit in between the two. Yes, I want to be married. Yes, I want that new job with the pay raise. Yes, I want to see my brother come to Jesus because I want a family that is all going to heaven. But. I also want to be married because after a life of trauma, finding a safe space in a husband after a long journey of singleness shows that God can soften my hardened heart and do a deep work in me, and anyone. I want that new job because it shows how God gives good gifts to His children and opens doors that no man can open. I want to see my brother come to know the Lord because what a testimony to the miraculous power of grace it will be that my highly intellectual brother met the person of Jesus.
Obedience requires perspective shifts and deep heart work. So say yes to Him, friends, you won’t regret it.
