I hear the Lord saying, “I will stay close to you, instructing and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I will advise you along the way and lead you forth with my eyes as your guide. So don’t make it difficult; don’t be stubborn when I take you where you’ve not been before. Don’t make me tug you and pull you along. Just come with me!” Psalm 32:8-9
Feet at the Water’s Edge
The Children of Israel were standing at the edge of the Red Sea. A whirlwind of weeks and months had led up to their departure from Egypt, and now it felt more like a trap than a path to freedom. In front of them, water overflowing its banks; on either side, mountains looming like ominous prison walls, and behind them the sound of chariot wheels moving ever closer. (Exodus 14:10-14)
From the moment Moses arrived on the scene, life had been upended. After all the disruption, the Israelites were longing for words of comfort and certainty, you know, ones that look great on a T-shirt like: “Don’t Worry! I’ve got this” or “Miracles Happen.” And in fact, Moses had just directed them to “stand still and see God’s Salvation.” But God’s response to their hesitation came as a question: “What are you waiting for?” “Why are you standing still?” Tell the Israelites to “move”! (Exodus 14:15)
The sea was already beginning to open; the water formed massive walls and dry ground, creating a pathway for millions of people to walk. What stood between them and their deliverance wasn’t God’s slowness; it was their choice. They were on the edge of another miracle with their feet planted in fear. Their decision would determine their fate.
Calling Stubbornness Holy
So often we believe we are waiting on God. It becomes a standoff: who will move first? We have come to believe He is slow and only comes through at the last minute, so we stand around, sweating and wringing our hands. Maybe the truth is we have become complacent and proud of it. We call it “holding onto faith” when we refuse to move, refuse to change, refuse to let go of how we thought this was supposed to go. (In that way we are more like the Israelites than we would like to admit.) It sounds spiritual. It sounds biblical.
But sometimes what we’re really practicing isn’t patience. It’s a refusal dressed up as resolve. What if we’ve been calling our stubbornness holy? The Israelites faced real choices to listen and follow, yet most often let the noise of their circumstances dictate their obedience. God called them stiff-necked; they called it wisdom and practicality.
The truth is, God never asks us to do something He hasn’t first talked to us about. God’s work in our lives isn’t hands-off. In fact, He is more intentional about the plans and purposes He has dreamed and designed for us than we are. We can be a little fickle. Okay, maybe just I fit that description. If God is that intentional, He isn’t leaving us to guess how to move forward. He tells us, plainly, what following Him actually looks and sounds like.
A Voice That Guides
In Psalm 32, it reads, “I hear the Lord saying, ‘I will stay close to you, instructing and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I will advise you along the way and lead you forth with my eyes as your guide.’” We can all celebrate that and agree that God’s ways lead to life. Unfortunately, knowing and following are often two different things. I have led myself down some pretty unpleasant paths with some less-than-stellar results.
It is never good to stop in the middle or camp out on the good part because there is always more to the story. God continues Psalm 32:9 with this: “So don’t make it difficult; don’t be stubborn when I take you where you’ve not been before. Don’t make me tug you and pull you along. Just come with me!” Well, this puts things in a whole different perspective. So, is it possible that this long-suffering we have been practicing might take a long time and feel like suffering, but is actually stubbornness dressed up in religious language?
Patience or Stubbornness?
There is a distinct difference between being patient and being stubborn. Patience is “the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.” Stubbornness is “having or showing dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially despite good arguments or reasons to do so. A stubborn refusal to learn from experience.”
God can tolerate our slowness and even love us through our uncertainty, but He can also grow weary of our resistance. We have convinced ourselves that holding tightly, because we cannot see any other way, is long-suffering and holy. What if the challenge is to yield our expectations and follow?
Who’s Holding Up our Destiny?
The Lord invites us to follow even when it doesn’t feel right, even when it seems like He is taking us in the opposite direction, even when it seems contrary to His promises. God is the one who exercises great patience with us. Perhaps we are the ones who have been holding up God’s plans all along. None of us wants to believe that is the truth; we would rather cling to the excuse that this is all somehow God’s fault.
It would be unwise for us to assume we can sit back and wait for God to “pull us along” into our destiny. He won’t drag us anywhere we don’t want to go. Nor is the point to assume we receive what God has promised and believe that “we can take it from here.” The children of Israel tried that once, and it did not work out so well for them.
The Currency of Surrender
The beauty of being connected to God is that He promises to lead us, advise us, and lend His eyes to guide us. We need to dislodge our hearts from our own perspective of how things should turn out. Relinquishing our opinions, rather than holding on to them stubbornly, is the first step toward moving in concert with God’s plans. “His way is easy, and His burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28) Getting into the yoke with Him is not constricting; it is freeing and empowering. We get the benefit of His strength and wisdom, while we get to go along for the ride.
We need the Lord to reframe our thinking and give us the courage to let God lead and follow. Surrender is the currency we exchange for destiny. Without it, we may find ourselves wandering around aimlessly, mistaking our stubbornness for endurance and missing the very promise we’re desperately trying to find. But when we stop dragging our feet and get in step with Him, something shifts. What felt like delay was never His pace — it was our resistance. Let us trade that resistance for patience, and our pride for humility.