We sometimes throw around the phrase ‘Jehovah Jireh,’ God provides. It’s easy to say, easy to tell someone when they are worried about the future. But that phrase comes from Genesis 22, the story of the Binding of Isaac. The Binding of Isaac, as in the story when Abraham brings his promised firstborn son up the mountain, and Isaac asks him where the sacrifice is, because they have everything for a burnt offering except the animal. And Abraham trudges steadily upward with his son and their servants, and tells him God will provide (v. 8). 

This phrase, YHWH Jireh, or yir-eh, literally means ‘God will see.’ In English it gets translated as ‘provide,’ which is beautiful, because it is the Latin word for ‘to see’, paired with the preposition pro-, which means ‘to foresee.’ It just adds kind of a spatial element to this pericope: I get the sense that God was watching from the heavens, above the mount where he could see Abraham and Isaac in uncertainty on one side, and a ram caught in the thicket on the other side of the peak. He did not just orchestrate things so there would be a sacrifice in Isaac’s place–and what an incredible Christological parallel!–but he saw it all. This is why He asked Abraham to trust Him.

I am in the middle of a long-haul transition here. Last year I was struck unexpectedly with inspiration to pursue a PhD in a slightly different direction academically, which means it will take me to a totally new location. Last year’s moment of inspiration has transformed me as a person, as a scholar, and totally changed my life overall, in such a short period of time.

Some of you have been hearing me talk about super cool Bible scholars in all sorts of places, from Atlanta, Georgia to Germany, and month by month and week by week there has been nothing but development and growth and opening of doors. My head hasn’t stopped spinning all year. At this point I am living in the ambiguity of not knowing where I’ll be studying, but pursuing opportunities headfirst anyway.

Within only a few weeks of arriving back in Dublin, I knew I needed to find an end date for my time at the café where I’ve been working since 2019. I began to pray profusely all through July, and after a terribly difficult and stressful two weeks, made the agonizing decision to leave behind a place and people that had been my second home through a chaotic period. I started teaching recently at my alma mater, Northwest University, as an adjunct instructor for an online theology course. My priority this last number of months has been academics, and I have had to be swiftly decisive time and again to protect my studying and writing time. So I have handed in my notice, and now, my last day ever as a barista is in one week.

It is still too early to know when I’ll be leaving Dublin: I will be staying here for the time being, teaching from across the Atlantic, perhaps taking on some individual students to tutor, and furiously studying all my research languages.

But returning to this city after five months away has made me see it almost with fresh eyes, especially when the pandemic has contorted what I used to know. I have memories of this place going back almost a decade, and so many friendships spanning all these years. My oldest friends, from St. Mark’s, know me as the crazy American who would not give up until she was in Dublin. I went back and forth so many times between Dublin and the US in the span of five years, and each time I felt I was returning home.

However, as difficult as it may be for my dear friends to hear, so many brothers and sisters of my heart, I have always known Dublin would not be my long-term home. I have relished every moment here, treasured the times with friends and cherished the things I have experienced, because I always knew deep in my heart that this was for a specific chapter of my life, as a young twenty-something who was happy to live in the middle of a noisy city and make coffee while her dreams were brewing under the surface.

Reuniting with these friends after the pandemic has been a tonic, like a reminder of who I am. Yesterday I had breakfast with a friend at my favorite place, The Fumbally, and I was describing to her how I just knew it was the right thing to quit my job at the café, even though I only know I am contracted to work for NU through October, at this point. I said something like, well I guess I’m just going to have to take this step as a step of faith. And she said Leslie, that’s pretty much the norm for you. This is standard for as long as I’ve known you.

I forgot, somehow, that this is how I’ve been living my entire adult life. The only way I got to where I am, living in Dublin, with a master’s in theology and opportunity and potential to become a biblical scholar, is by taking a step before I could see the path in front of me, Indiana Jones style. Five years ago I took the scariest step of faith, and the events that followed my brave choice to summer in Ireland without plans resulted in me finding my true vocation in academia. God saw. God saw. 

I feel very much like Bilbo Baggins, thrust out, unprepared, on an adventure he didn’t ask for when he would rather stay cozy at home, where life is stable, reliable, and predictable. It has never been easy. I made sacrifices of so much to pursue this life. I bitterly struggle, constantly, with the fact that I do not have my own house and that I am not settled down yet–separate to the fact that I am single and still waiting to find my life partner! Beyond that, this current ambiguity of not knowing where I will be living for the next five plus years as a PhD is the keenest form of torture I have ever known.

I feel weary lately, weary with not knowing, and weary from pushing myself a little too hard for the last year. I think at this stage I am almost at the top of the mountain, knowing God will provide because He will see my needy circumstance. My legs are burning, my lungs are bursting, I’m running out of water. 

But I just want to record this painful moment here, so that whenever I finally get to announce where I’ve been accepted to do my PhD, it will come as the provision to a great need, an answer to all the sacrifices I’ve made, a fulfillment of a huge and long-looming question.

For a very long time I knew specifically I was supposed to be in Ireland, and once I got here in 2014 I didn’t know exactly what I was supposed to be doing. That came in time, really slowly. But now, the exact opposite has happened: I know that I am meant to be taking on a PhD and studying the topic of fasting in the Old Testament. But God won’t budge or give me any hint about where I’m supposed to be studying. Maybe He won’t reveal it until I’m at the top of the mountain. 

But until then, I just have to remember that God will see me struggling upwards with empty hands, knowing I have great need of provision. Truly countless times He has met me atop the mountain of sacrifice, filling my hands when I came with nothing. 

Things are falling into place. I can see some of it, and I know there must be more happening behind the scenes. But be encouraged, because when God calls us to make a big sacrifice, sometimes He is asking us to sacrifice something we don’t have yet, and we can be confident that if He is calling, then He will meet us there in that place.