For years I have believed something completely erroneous it seems! Last week I had a break from work and went exploring in the highlands of Scotland.
Earlier in the year God spoke to me about going further North, and then I heard the phrase “true north” which resonated in my spirit. So, I decided to visit the north coast and, in my head, a logical place to visit was John O’ Groats. I have heard of people making the journey from Lands End in Cornwall to John O Groats in the North of Scotland and understood it to be a kind of end-to-end journey.
As I entered the details in the app on my phone for directions, I noticed a bit further along the coast, a place with the annotation “most northern point of mainland UK” … what?! I was shocked to discover that all my assumptions were not based on reality. I had never looked this closely at the northern coast on the map and had held my wrong beliefs for a very long time. I have since discovered that my ignorance extends southwards too, and Lands End is not the most southerly point. Geography, as my family would testify, is not my strongest point!
I decided to visit John O’ Groats anyway, but also to go the northernmost point at Dunnet Head. It turns out that God, unsurprisingly, had things he wanted to say to me on the trip.
It was a gloriously sunny day, and I drank in the beauty of the countryside I was passing through, stopping lots to take photos and to just breathe. John O’ Groats was very busy with people, tourist shops, hotels, cafés, a car park and toilets. All the facilities. I wandered along the beach path a bit then had coffee and cake overlooking the famous sign, the sculptures and the sea. It has to be said, I didn’t really want to spend long there.
I continued and as I drove towards Dunnet Head, I could see a cliff face and knew that was it. I turned off the main road and crossed wild, empty countryside. The road was single track and much rougher than the road I had been following. I was reminded of Matthew 7:14
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
It was true, there were not many people when I got there. Holy Spirit was speaking to me on the journey and by the time I arrived I was definitely emotional. He was recalibrating my thoughts about my walk with him. He talked to me about how I want it to look like John O’ Groats, with all the luxury, the comfort, the facilities. Have I liked my preferences to be satisfied – the “right” style of preaching, music and the right after-service coffee, a sprinkling of Holy Spirit to make me feel warm and fuzzy but not enough to send me to Outer Mongolia or anywhere without warm showers every morning? In reality, following him, allowing him to be God in my life, often looks a lot more like Dunnet Head. “True North” is a lot wilder, a lot less comfortable, a lot freer and more open than I think. At Dunnet Head, there were no facilities other than a car park and a lighthouse. No coffee and cake, no toilets, no neatly bordered paths ~ I walked down to the cliff edge, and it was steep and scary, with no safety fence. Life with Holy Spirit in charge is a lot more risky but more exciting too.
I stood looking out over the sea, feeling Holy Spirit’s pull into the wilder, freer, less boxed in and limited, “safe” version of Christianity that I have been content to stay in. Not for nothing was Holy Spirit represented as a wild goose in early Celtic Christianity. I wondered just how much I have wanted a domesticated version of Christianity, and a domesticated version of Holy Spirit. More tame, flightless chicken than wild goose! I found myself repenting of anywhere I have wanted to limit and restrict my life to what feels safe, comfortable, and convenient; anywhere I have limited him and his influence in my life. I found myself having a moment of reconsecration up there on that northern point and saying again, “I am willing to follow wherever you lead God.”
Later, I as researched the phrase “true North” on the internet, I discovered (more geography learning!) that magnetic north, where the compass points, moves as the magnetic field of the earth moves but true north is a fixed point on the globe. Immediately that resonated for me with those scriptures that talk about fixing our eyes on Jesus and how he is our rock, our immovable object, especially in the storms ahead of us. Psalm 18:2, for example, declares:
The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn if my salvation, my stronghold.
It is easy to sing about Jesus being the centre, the fixed point in my life, but I need to make sure that what I have fixed on IS in fact ‘true north’ and not some assumptions that I have made about him, not some wrong beliefs, wrong hopes. As I researched true north, the first thing that came up was a website that talked about how in 2019, for the first time for hundreds of years, true north and magnetic north would be aligned, pointing in the same direction. Lord, align the direction of travel of your church with your direction; align me with “true north”.
I need to allow him to recalibrate my thinking where it is not lined up with the truth of who he actually is. I need to make sure that my understanding of following him has its basis in truth, not in some airy fairy, imaginary, fluffy walk of Christianity that does not relate to the biblical reality. Romans 12:2 in the Passion Translation exhorts us:
Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think.
“A total reformation of how you think” is dramatic. I am apparently not the only one who thinks John O’ Groats is the most northerly point, several websites also stated this but the fact that others think the same does not make something truer.
As Christians, we should look so very different from the culture around us. I wonder how much I have resisted that total reformation in the past. Holy Spirit’s work in me should look a lot more radical than maybe I have allowed it to be. I have changed but I also know there are still places where I resist change, preferring the comfort of staying how I am, preferring to fit in to the culture around me.
The phrase “true north” also means a personal fixed point that you orientate yourself around in a spinning world, helping you to stay on track. As I allow Holy Spirit to be my “true north”, as I allow him to shape me internally realigning my beliefs, my motivations, and my thoughts with those of heaven, I will be more fully aligned with God’s purpose for my life. In my imagination, it is like I have an internal compass that pulls me in the direction of God’s path for my life and as I yield to Holy Spirit and allow him to orientate that compass, to pull me back on track in every way, I follow the paths that were laid down before I was even born, and I live my fullest most satisfying life. Ecclesiastes 3:11 tells us that
He has also planted eternity [a sense of divine purpose] in the human heart [a mysterious longing which nothing under the sun can satisfy, except God] …
He has made it so that deep within me, there is a pull towards that “Holy Spirit’s true north”. And so, the response is to obey Proverbs 3:6
In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
My prayer as I surrender again is, “Holy Spirit, where have I resisted you? Where have I made assumptions about you that are not biblical? Where have I opted for comfort instead of truth? Teach me your ways.”
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