Stay the Course

Hello Zeteo community, 

I hope your week is going well, and you're taking in all the beautiful Autumn colours while they make their fleeting appearance.

Olivia sits at the Zeteo events and writes furious, thorough notes, for this. The writer that she is, she prepares. I, however, just got a phone call today while I was sitting in Boston Pizza. Could you write the Zeteo blog this week? I think you're supposed to. Next time, I will take notes.

Thank you for reading,
Brielle Waldner

Week 1: Stay the Course

We were blessed to have Michael Chiasson speak for the last Zeteo event, and I remember it being really powerful. I also remember him saying we forget 90% of every talk we listen to, but the tiny sliver that we remember, is all we need to hear.

The words he spoke, that I heard loud and clear, were S T A Y the COURSE.  This is such a universal message, we can all hear it and find room for it somewhere in our lives, but it was especially powerful for me that night.
Olivia and I have always found that the events we have most needed to be at, the Searches, the Live-In's, the Family Life Conferences, whatever it may be, we face resistance getting to. There is always a battle, a lack of desire to go, a snow storm, something getting in the way. Those are always the events, the moments, that turn out to be the most powerful in our lives.

My resistance that night came in the form of a car accident. I could have turned around with my car that had been crumpled up in the corner like a pop can, but I went anyway. Stay the course.


(Was that meant to be a segway or what?)


What is your course? What prayer is God asking you to pray boldly? And further, to boldly believe He will answer for you? Where is He asking you to walk boldy? Those are the questions that I was asking myself while Michael was talking. Those are the questions I challenge you to ask yourself, and God, now. Go on. Take a minute. I'll be here when you're done....

Back? Did you figure it out? Or are you still having doubts on what that course actually is? That's where I was at.

But I saw a quote on Pinterest the other day that said this: Never does the Bible say figure it out, but over and over it says trust in God. Which is comforting to me, and true.


As I sat there wondering what my bold course was to travel, Michael kept talking. "Who here has ever prayed a bold prayer, over and over, the same prayer?" I have. "Maybe you're sitting there desperately wanting to get married, and you keep asking God, and it's just not happening." I was.

God pulled those exact words out of my head. They were there. Exactly what I had been thinking. But I doubted that was a bold enough course. That was not living my faith boldly like someone who is called to cure an incurable disease in Africa while bringing thousands of souls to God in the process. However, I know that is not my calling. Sometimes staying the course is a waiting game. Sometimes it is watching other people get married, or cure diseases, or convert souls, or do missionary work in far corners of the world, while we are called to wait, to be patient.

So I am patient to staying the course, even though it looks like the path on right, and I want it to look like the path on the left.

Sometimes living a bold faith, I think, is boldly trusting that God is working, that He is moving, when we cannot see it. Trusting God is answering our prayers, guiding out lives, even when it does not look like what we thought it would look like. As Michael said, "we only see what is on our radar, but our radar screen is much too small. We have to trust in God's plan, because He has such a bigger view than we do."


My boldest prayer is for my husband, which is honestly hard to admit. It is the hardest prayer for me, but it is the one most heavy on my heart - God is calling me to stay the course. Stay the course. To trust that those prayers I have prayed so many times, are being answered, and not ignored. To trust that one day I will find the right person to dance with in our kitchen and I will laugh that it was ever a challenge to trust we would find our way to each other.

That is a bold thing for me to believe after so many years. That is the place in my life God is calling me to be bold. What is yours, big or small? What is it? We are all not called to walk the same path, or built to carry the same crosses. I pray this week that God would give you the strength to walk your own path boldly. That His love would flood and overwhelm you, and His grace would lead you to a peace you never thought you could reach.

Amen.