It was the breaking news on January 15, 2015. Nineteen days after Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson set out to achieve one of the most difficult climbing challenges, they reached the summit of the 3000-feet rock called the El Captain in Yosemite National Park in USA. It was the first free ascent of a notoriously difficult section of the mountain. For these two, this adventure was about “realizing a dream.” It was a risky journey. Nobody has done this before. It was an attempt to make history.
A week prior to this event during our family Bible Study, we talked about God who knows the end from the beginning,who had already seen December 31st, 2015 before bringing us to January 1st. My first son, in explaining his understanding of this scripture, noted that this was like God going to the end of the year and then walking back to the beginning while taking note of the hurdles, puddles and hitches along the way. Then, He holds our hands and leads us in the way to go. That was an apt analogy that confirmed our need to depend absolutely on God in order to fulfil His plans and purpose for our lives.
It was also around the same time that I began an in-depth study on the subject: “Knowing God / Know Your God.” According to Daniel 11:32,
“they that know their God shall be strong and shall do exploits.” To do exploit is to do something of wonder—an amazing thing.
Tommy and Kevin accomplished an amazing feat. It was an exploit. The journey was an adventure. They had a dream that they realized at the end of their course. There were many unknowns and many risks at the beginning of the adventure they undertook. But they were undeterred, bold and courageous.
At one point in time or the other in our lives, we will find ourselves at the brink of the unknown—a new dimension of our life’s adventures here on earth. For some of us, it may be a life-changing event that will occur, which will not only remind us that we are not in control of our lives or our journey, but will also re-direct our journey on a path already known by God in advance. This occurrence that we never envisaged will put us on the path that will take us towards fulfilling purpose and destiny.This makes life an interestingbut sometimes exciting and riskyjourney. Such events will cause us to hold onto the belief that somehow God’s good purpose for us is bound to everything that happens along the way.
If we are going to do what God has called us to do or become who God intended us to be and fulfil purpose and destiny, we will need to take the step of faith forward, with boldness and courage founded on knowing God personally, intimately and truly. We will need to know God for ourselves, not simply as the God talked about by someone else or as the God preached by the Pastors.
Becoming who God created us to be, and thus fulfilling destiny, calls for a willingness to step out into the unknown. It calls on us to trust God even when huge pieces of the puzzle are missing. It calls for holding onto hope and faith in God even when we do not understand what is happening around us or to us. It simply means we step out to do exploits— amazing and wonderful things on the strength of our intimate knowledge of God, His instructions, and His call upon our lives.
Ruth did the same thing. She began an adventure to the place she had never been before under the weight of the double calamity of childlessness and widowhood in addition to an extra baggage of a depressed and bitter mother-in-law.
Ruth started on this life’s journey on the basis of her encounter with God. She was undeterred by the doubts expressed by Naomi, who had every reason to declare that God had dealt her a bad hand. After all, Ruth was a witness to the fierce storms that devastated Naomi’s whole life without any apparent intervention by God. Instead, Ruth took refuge under the wings of this same God and went on into the unknown on the strength of her encounter with God. Stripped of all social and relational props, she displayed amazing strength and challenged the social norms in her journey to fulfil destiny.
She is calling out to every single one of us, Daughters of Zion and Princesses of the Most High God, to come into a deeper, more intimate, and more personal knowledge of God that will cause us to be strong, bold and courageous for our life’s journey.
For it is in this depth of knowledge that we can, and will do the amazing and wonderful things God intended for us and created us to accomplish.
Irene Olumese