Where feet may fail

It feels hard to believe, but today was my last Monday at college of this academic year. One whole year has passed already and I am halfway through this particular New Song. The next New Song beckons - I watched my Twitter feed this weekend fill with pictures of new deacons and priests ordained in cathedrals all around the country and that will be me next year, assuming all continues to go well.

The conversations with the diocese about curacy have started and I find myself gulping down a mixture of anxiety, excitement and disbelief that, in a year's time, I will have moved church, left college, bought a cassock and a dog collar (or two), and be setting off on the next part of the adventure.

To be honest, I still feel new. I still can't quite believe that this is my path now. It was not expected. It was not anticipated. It was not an ambition held for years. God has led me this way and I have to trust he will continue to lead me. I am following where he leads because I have no idea how else to do this.

You see, on paper, this should not have worked. Nothing about my circumstances is "standard", whatever that actually means. Very little about what me and my family could offer fit in to the classic mould of a priest in the Church of England.

Three years ago, as I was panicking about the fact I couldn't ignore this calling and feeling ambivalent at best about it all, I heard a song for the first time and the words scared and comforted me all at the same time:

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find you in the mystery
In oceans deep my faith will stand.

And I will call upon your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise, my soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine.

The words of this song, Oceans by Hillsong, made me realise that the scary stuff might not be so scary if I just followed where I was being led. The impossible might feel more possible if I held tightly on to the steady, warm hand of Jesus and kept my gaze on him. And this has remained true. Where there seemed to be obstacles and barriers, they have simply been removed and I have walked a clear path to where I am now and, I hope, to where I will go next. My story is one of miraculous provision and God's promises kept.

The song remains special and precious because of how God has spoken through it and continues to do so. It's like God knows when I'm wobbling and need some reassurance. We celebrated the Eucharist this morning at college and, as I walked up to receive communion, the singer's beautiful voice started to gently sing these familiar words.

I'd started the morning incredulous that I was about to be a final year, in minor denial about my ordination only being a year away and feeling a bit sad that this marvellous place with its extraordinary people that I now call my friends was only going to be part of my life for one more year. And God gave me this song again at that moment - a gift of reassurance and hope and promise.

There is still much to do (not least the New Testament essay that needs to be in by the end of this week and the two assignments over the holidays!) but I journey on. All these New Songs that I'm singing will stay with me and make me the priest that God is intending me to be. And, if ever I feel that my feet are failing, I can trust that God will use the Old Songs to remind me that I am his and he is mine.

Because, in the end, that is all that matters.