Living Writeous

Have you and friends or family planned to go somewhere and there were so many of you, you all had to take a few cars so you all could make it to wherever you were going? Have you ever planned to meet up with someone or go out with someone and you had to figure out how to get there? Maybe you live up north and they live down south so you have to travel different routes or maybe use different methods of transportation? What about traveling to a new destination? Have you ever typed in the address in Google maps and they give you a few routes to choose from to make it to your destination? Maybe there is more traffic on one route and the other one, you have to cross a bridge and maybe even pay a toll? Well, I have experienced both. The really cool thing is that for the most part there will always be a few ways to get wherever you are trying to go. Oftentimes you can choose what works best for you. Whether it’s riding on Route 66, going through the Grapevine, purchasing an Amtrak ticket, or putting that bicycle to good use, ordering a Lyft, it’s really up to you. No matter the destination, you can decide how you get there. 

But where I get really worried is…what do you do when your friends or family don’t want to go to the same coffee shop or restaurant?

Forget about how to get there, what if they don’t want to go at all? What if they told you, they were on their way, and decided at the last minute they are going to go somewhere else? Then what? What do you do? Well, for me, I am still going to go. Maybe I really want Philz, or I want that Thai food…

Moments like these are often disappointing, but the fact of the matter is that I cannot make anyone go where I want to go. I can suggest, encourage, but I cannot force anything. This is where I am struggling spiritually right now. Recognizing that many of the people I love will not go where I am going.

I have come to the very simple understanding that many of the people who I love, will not be traveling with me on this journey. They will not be accompanying me on MY walk with Jesus Christ; they will not be present or have a front row seat to my personal transformation and growth. It’s a hard pill to swallow. You have this thought that your relationship with Jesus will encourage the people in your life to follow Him as well. However, there are times when saying ‘yes’ to God creates a divide between yourself and the person you want to walk alongside. Your friend chooses to go left while you are called to go right. No amount of slowing down or calling to them will change their mind. 

A Sharp Turning Point

In October 2020,  I rededicated my life back to Christ. I grew up Baptist.  My grandma thought she had me souled out for Jesus. Not at all, as soon as I got a taste of freedom I was gone. While I was gone, I made friends. I also found some family. I was having fun, living my best life. So unsaved and so unsanctified. LOL. I had a few handfuls of friends and family that were always down to go to the bar, that were always down to go to the club, that were always down to go to Vegas, that were always ready for Miami. We were tight. We were so tight, I just knew they were going to come to church with me. I just knew they would stop cursing. I just knew they would stop getting black out drunk. When the time came to find my way back to God,  I knew some of those same friends would come with me. I prayed hard. I tried to encourage them, to show them how God had changed me. I just knew they would, until they didn’t.

My best friend of 20 years supported me in the beginning. She would show up to events here and there when I invited her. She always encouraged me in my walk. She even tried to stop cursing around me. I just knew she was on her way!I prayed and asked God to really change her mind, to really work on her heart! It wasn’t until I had this dream and then prayed this little prayer until everything started to really shift. Not for my friend, but for me.

The Stop Sign

September 2024, my best friend told me she wasn’t going to stop drinking, smoking weed, or selling drugs. She said she was keeping her lineup of men and that the church thing just wasn’t for her. She told me we were two different people and we were not going the same direction or walking the same path. She told me I was a “good girl” always had been, and she admired that about me. But she wasn’t going to change. Her life was working for her. She said it was time to end the friendship because I was going somewhere she had no interest in going. My heart dropped to my stomach. And just like that, everything I’d been afraid to admit became real.

I didn’t understand how one decision like saying yes to Jesus could result in so much loss. I couldn’t quite understand why she had to go to such great lengths, all she had to do was tell me to stop inviting her to church. I told her she was just angry and she didn’t mean what she was saying. I began to cry. How is this happening? A part of me knew she wasn’t serious, but was she? I gave her a few days to cool down. I called her. The conversation was quick. The friendship was over. The grief stayed.

The more I sat with God,  the more I began to see that this was a pruning. You can pray and ask God to change someone’s heart, but they still get to choose. That moment was my first of many spiritual heartbreaks. It taught me a very harsh truth: you cannot take people where they are not willing to go.

People I never expected to leave, eventually did. With each loss, the reality hit that this walk is not always going to be lined with familiar faces. But Jesus already told us that.

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.But narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”— Matthew 7:13–14 (NKJV)

Not Everyone Will Come With You

One of the hardest things to sit with is the truth that you can’t force anyone to follow Jesus, not even the people you love the most. You can pray. You can be a reflection of light. You can send the texts, extend the invites, and speak life over them every chance you get. But at the end of the day, they still have to choose for themselves. No one tells you how painful it is to watch someone you love choose a lifestyle that’s pulling them further and further away from God.

My best friend showed me that many of us will choose what feels good, like sexual immorality, drugs, drinking, and other sin because it’s easier. It’s their norm and what’s popular right?  They don’t want to give up what makes them feel good or what feeds their fleshly desires. One thing I know for sure, is this journey is not for everyone. People choose the wide road because it demands absolutely nothing from them. It doesn’t challenge them. It doesn’t require change.

But the narrow way? The road to life? It’s very challenging. It’s often really lonely. It comes with sacrifice. And often, it comes with the painful realization that you can’t walk with people who are not willing to go.

And that’s the part that hurts.

They have to want this for themselves. You can’t want their free gift of salvation more than they do. You certainly can’t want healing for someone who thinks what is broken, is working perfectly fine.

“Can two walk together, unless they are agreed?”— Amos 3:3 (NKJV)

This doesn’t make your love for them any less real. It doesn’t make their absence any less painful. But it does shift your posture. You will look around and notice that your circle is smaller. But.. your spirit is heavier with the presence of God. There is peace, even in the loneliness, that I can promise.

One Way, Many Journeys

Something else I had to learn and learn quickly (and I am still learning) is that everyone’s journey won’t look like mine, and that is okay. God doesn’t copy and paste. That’s for us, the humans. God in His Divine Essence, works uniquely, intentionally, and personally. What He’s doing in me might not look like what He’s doing in someone else. The timing may be different. The setting might be different. The process may be messier or maybe even more refined, extremely loud or pin drop quiet, and all of that is okay. But here’s the part that cannot be negotiated:

There is only one way to the Father, and that’s through Jesus Christ.

“Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”— John 14:6 (NKJV)

Letting go of people you love is never easy. And honestly, I don’t think it ever will be. But following Jesus has taught me that obedience will sometimes cost you comfort. It can often cost you relationships. But… what you gain is a closeness with God that cannot be matched.

You gain clarity. You gain peace. You gain purpose.

This journey I’m on…It’s not glamorous. It’s not always exciting. Sometimes, it’s quiet. Sometimes, it’s heavy.  I’ve cried some real tears over this. Grieved deeply. Wrestled with God about why some of my friendships had to end and why other relationships feel so far away. After my grandma passed away in 2020, one of my friends said to me, “Grief and gratitude can coexist.” I am slowing understanding and also experiencing what that really means.

If you are in a season like mine where the people you once walked with have chosen another path, I just want to say: you are not alone.

God sees you. Keep going anyway.

“Let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.”— Galatians 6:9 (NKJV)

You may not walk with a crowd. But if you’re walking with Christ, you are heading in the right direction.