Wherever He Leads, He’ll Go

In the Baptist church of my childhood, every Sunday service ended with an altar call. My pastor stood at the front of the church in case anyone needed prayer or wanted to make a profession of faith in Jesus. During that time, the music minister would lead the church in a hymn from the Baptist hymnal and, because we were dyed-in-the-wool Baptists, we sang every single verse in case someone in the sanctuary was quietly resisting the Spirit’s call to go forward.

The songs I remember singing the most were ones that involved responding to the Lord’s call. “Just as I Am,” “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” and “Wherever He Leads, I’ll Go” were some of the ones on our regular rotation of altar call response songs. I understand why. Phrases like “Oh Lamb of God, I come” and “no turning back” definitely seem appropriate if you’re hoping someone will make a public declaration to follow Jesus.

When I was fifteen years old, I read a novel about a woman who pledged to obey God in whatever he asked her to do in her life, no matter how hard. Her future unspooled in long stretches of deep suffering wherein she continually committed to follow the Lord’s lead, no turning back. I liked the idea of promising obedience, of telling the Lord that nothing in this world would be dearer to me than obeying Him. In young, untried faith, I nearly invited him to test me, telling him in a long, journaled prayer that wherever he led, I would most certainly go. I banked on my obedience. I would be stalwart, no matter what came.

 

life came. And the Lord led me to places I longed to escape from: decades of infertility, disease, chronic pain that battered my body for years on end. “Well, I didn’t exactly mean this,” I told the Lord. “I meant something else. Like the mission field, maybe.” I pled with him to free me from the prison my body became, for healing to escape the long nights of sleeplessness, for children to fill my empty arms. These weren’t places that he led a willing follower to. These were places he dragged me to. I wasn’t willing to follow him to suffering, which means I would have missed all the things he has taught me in the places I’d have happily avoided.

Wherever he leads, I might go. Maybe.

What I think that well-intentioned old hymn gets wrong is that we’re not always willing to obey the Lord no matter what. We make promises and break them. Our perseverance wears thin beneath the strains of suffering and grief. If this process of being sanctified is wholly dependent upon our willingness to follow, we might be in trouble. But that’s what’s so encouraging about faith and perseverance and the whole process of being saved and sanctified: it doesn’t depend wholly on us. We are fragile, weak, and prone to wander. God is strong, loyal, and steadfast. Where we flounder, he stands firm. When we doubt, he remains true. When we feel we’re losing our grip on him, he is ever firmly holding on to us. We might want to promise him that we’ll go wherever he leads, and in a sense, it’s not wrong to tell him that’s our desire. But, the truer reality is that wherever he leads, he’ll go. Wherever he leads us to in this life, he will meet us there with his presence and his faithfulness.

Remember that story in Matthew 14 when Peter gets to walk on the water with Jesus? It’s one of my favorites. I hope that one day in the new heavens and new earth I get to see some kind of replay of that event. Jesus comes walking across the sea of Galilee to his disciples in the midst of a squall. On top of churning waves, Peter stands with his Savior and all is well. Really well. Until Peter starts looking around at the tempest around his ankles and begins to sink. “Save me!” he cries out. Jesus does two things simultaneously. He grabs Peter’s hand and rebukes his weak faith. “Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?” The Maker of the sea had not lost control. And his grip was stronger than Peter’s doubt. He made Peter walk back to the boat in the squall, a detail that speaks to what Jesus might have been teaching Peter in that moment. Trust Me. I am with you. I Am. Only once they were back in the boat did the sea return to calm.

We’re not as strong as we think we are. When life is calm, we declare our loyalty— even to the shadow of the valley of death! But have you ever thought about the true hope in that shadowed valley? It’s not escape. It’s God’s presence in it. It’s his protection, it’s his promise to run after you with goodness. Wherever he leads, he’ll go.

The wherever changes with different seasons of life. I’ve entered a new chapter in my life where pain is no longer my constant companion, and I wonder sometimes about the next wherever. I’m not that fifteen year old girl who blindly prayed with allegiance and little understanding of what the wherever might lead, but also I am still that same fifteen year old girl who longs to follow Jesus faithfully no matter where he might lead me.

The difference is I have less faith in my own determination and more faith in the God who keeps his promises to be with his people. Wherever he leads, he’ll go. Trust him. He’s with you. He is.

But that’s what’s so encouraging about faith and perseverance and the whole process of being saved and sanctified: it doesn’t depend wholly on us. Share on X

Photo by Zack Smith on Unsplash