292 The Testimony of the In-Between: Why Your Weak Steps Matter More Than Your Finished Story
On Learning to Walk in Community Instead of Accomplishing in Isolation
Good morning, Father Most High.
It is 8:45am, and I am sitting here with my journal open, trying to put words to what You have been teaching me. I want to thank You for all that You have done for me and all that You continue to do. I want to thank You for Your gifts of grace. A gift I do not deserve. But I humbly receive as a dependent son. Dependent on You for the things that truly matter.
I had a conversation with a sister in Christ yesterday. She preached some things to me about myself that were obvious but somehow I was failing to recognize. I want to thank You for putting her in my life and putting words to thoughts I did not even know I was thinking or living by.
She helped me see how my default stance of self-reliance, operating outside of You or others, was showing up in the ways I was interacting with people. I have been moving through life assuming I would bear witness to Your glory, grace, and blessings by setting out into the empire to achieve things. Then I would return with the fulfilled accomplishments to demonstrate the finished products of Your grace and blessings in my life. I was thinking and behaving as if only then would I be in a position to share the testimony of what You had done through me. After the obstacles were faced and crossed. After the doubts were mitigated and overcome. After the prayers were all answered.
I was of the mind that I would go off into the world, independent of community and family, accomplish the things You set before me, and only then return to demonstrate and share a testimony that You facilitated.
But that is the wrong way to walk this path. Yes, the testimony does produce a shareable story. But the fruit of the testimony is the act of walking each step in obedience and navigating all the challenges and emotions experienced while taking those steps. The meat of the testimony is the witness of others as I take the steps You put before me and being honest and open about the challenges I contend with in each of those moments.
In other words, my faith is demonstrated in weak moments. The moments of doubt. The moments of insecurity in unfamiliar terrain and situations. In the witness of others. This is what Your Word says about being not only hearers of the word but doers of the word. James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (ESV). The doing happens in the open, in the company of the body.
Father, I pray and ask You to help me reorient my heart toward this new understanding. Help me move and act according to it.
The difference between how I understood my path and how I now understand it is best explained with a simple analogy.
I can read novel to the end. Then go out into the world and tell my friends about it. That was how I understood the walk.
Compare that to going through the experiences of that adventure novel with my friends and family witnessing and experiencing each step as we each take our respective roles in that story. The testimony that results from these two ways will have different impacts. The latter way involves community, people, and the variables that each interaction brings into the equation. The former is me sharing my story to friends and family about experiences, moments, and people they may not have met or known.
I am not suggesting there is no role for both types of walks and the testimonies they produce. But I do understand there is a need for community in order for the testimonies to have the most impact. It is that whole bit in Scripture about how Your words never come back empty. Isaiah 55:11 says, “So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (ESV). Your word accomplishes its purpose through the living, breathing community that carries it.
I wrote about this before in an article called “The Garden We Tend Together.” I talked about how our engagement waters soil we may never see. The comments, the shares, the quiet acts of presence all matter because the testimony is not a solo performance. It is a collaborative canvas. In “The Collaborative Canvas,” I explored how the Holy Spirit turns our perceived pauses into purposeful connections. That is what my sister in Christ was for me yesterday. She was the brushstroke I did not know I needed.
I also wrote about “The Known Destination, The Unseen Path.” I know where You are leading me, but I have no map for the journey. That is the point. The map is drawn in community. The path is illuminated by the brothers and sisters walking beside me, not by my own flashlight of self-reliance.
Father, I confess that I have been trying to earn Your approval by accomplishing things in isolation. I have been treating my walk like a solo expedition. But You designed the body to function together. 1 Corinthians 12:12 says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (ESV). I cannot be the whole body by myself. I need the eyes, the ears, the hands of others to see what I cannot see.
So I thank You for the sisters and brothers walking amongst me. I thank You for the community You are building around me. Help me to walk the steps in the open, not hiding my struggles until the victory is secured. Let the testimony be the process, not just the product. Let me be doer of the word in the company of the saints, not just a hearer who waits until the story is complete.
In the mighty name of Yahusha the Messiah, I pray these words.
Amen and amen!
That is all and thank You for reading.
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