When I was a kid, I used to imagine that I had a secret passageway from my bedroom to another world.

It wasn’t a “Lord of the Rings” world…or a “Lord of the Flies” one either. In fact, it was very specific. I could just open the vent beneath my bed and climb down to Michael Jordan’s secret training lab. It was in this gigantic underground clubhouse (with a full-size NBA court) that he and his friends (including me) would practice their skills and dunks. Nobody knew it was there except for me, and I had 24-hour access. It was my secret place.

When times were tough in our house or our family, I would just sneak up to my room and close my eyes — a necessary prerequisite to getting down the vent. I’d spend the next few hours with Michael, Kevin, Karl, and Vince — dribbling and dunking, the real world hundreds of miles above.

About a decade later, I was finding my escape in another secret place. As my life was colliding with the reality of the gospel, I’d find a place of solitude to meet God. The place wasn’t necessarily geographical, but spiritual. We’d meet there any hour of the day for any number of reasons. Questions, dreams, pain, joy, hope, guidance. Early morning, middle of the night, after work, during work. Just like Mike, God was always there — waiting for me to meet Him.

In these times, God would speak to me. Not always audibly, but sometimes. I would ask for daily (if not hourly) direction and in my spirit the path became clear. I coined the phrase, “If you want to know God’s will, just ask.” The secret place was my home base, I spent as much time there as anywhere else.

But eventually I became too busy to take the scenic route. I still wanted to know God’s will, but I didn’t have time for journey-learning. The secret place was becoming my spiritual vending machine. I would insert a prayer, hoping God would dispense an answer. I didn’t want a direction, I wanted a destination. I didn’t want a step, I wanted the map. I mastered context clues and assumed if God pointed me in a direction, it would lead to the most logical destination.

Why would God let me date someone if they weren’t my husband? Why would God tell me to switch jobs if it wasn’t a better environment? Why ask me to plant a community house if it would fail?

That sacred connection God and I shared in the secret place was fading in and out. After a massively failed relationship I thought was supposed to end in marriage, I questioned my ability to hear God’s voice. Man, I really blew that one. I took a “better luck next time” approach, and jumped into my next project: God was asking me to plant a community house. The provision was quick and profound. House: check. Finances: check. Roommates: check. The prayer request barely left my mouth and it was answered. I had the raw material, now it was time to build something legendary.

My visits to the secret space became less frequent. If God wanted that house to be a community house, I assumed any issues that might arise were my problem to fix, not His. It was as if He was my boss in a Fortune 500 company and when He issued a task, I shouldn’t come back until it sparkled with completion (The Devil Wears Prada Gospel). In my mind, He commissioned me to plant a community house and it better be nothing shy of an epicenter of radical love, community, and glory.

I believed He only cared about the ends, the means were of no consequence to Him.

(Insert Chapter 76 of “Adventures in Rachel Missing the Point”)

The rise and fall of “The Orchard House” was one of the most painful things I’ve journeyed through in my life. Every day was a fight for glory to break like dawn. Yet the harder we pushed to move forward, the darker it became. Our house became a place of isolation and unrest, misunderstanding and pointed fingers. I kept hoping one day it would all make sense, that we’d look back at our story and laugh. But it never happened, and I was finally asked to leave after a year’s worth of painful months.

I couldn’t possibly present this to God — this was a project that couldn’t go wrong and I annihilated it. I couldn’t face Him – either I had failed at hearing Him or failed at serving Him. I didn’t want to stand before Him in either predicament.

I moved into that house with one of my best friends and a complete stranger. Finding connection with the stranger was awkward and difficult. We didn’t know how to communicate and our lifestyles were drastically different. Yet over time, pain brought us together. We forged a bond that has changed me, in a forever sort of way. It’s changing me still.

I remember her telling me as I moved out, “This didn’t fail, Rachel. We found community – just not in the way we thought we would.”

But I couldn’t hear that, not yet. I was blinded by feelings of utter failure and crushed dreams. I hung my head that Thanksgiving night as I moved my boxes into my sister’s garage. That same day I sealed the entrance to the secret place, assuming I was no longer welcome there.

I determined I would never even attempt to hear God’s voice again.

It wasn’t so much that I was mad at God (I mean, I wouldn’t say I was thankful either). I was more angry at myself – how had I been so sure this was what He wanted me to pursue? I did everything in my power to fix it, and the damage was irreparable. Maybe I misheard him?

In this season of rest and recovery, I’ve been drawn time and time again to this powerful verse in Isaiah:

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”

He doesn’t say, “This is the destination, ride the moving walkway to it.” Or, “This is how it ends, just sit and wait until it happens.”

This is the way, walk in it.

It’s not necessarily that I heard Him wrong in the secret place, but I stopped meeting Him there. He gave me a direction to walk in and He wanted to lead me every step of the way.

Keep meeting me here, Rachel. Are you hurt? Meet me here. Are you excited? Meet me here. Confused? Repentant? Victorious? At the end of yourself? Meet me here.

The Devil Wears Prada Gospel is a false one. God’s expectations of our perfection are summed up in Jesus: THEY ALL NEED A SAVIOR.

Maybe I did blow my community house – maybe the epic failure was my fault. I might never know if different choices on my part could have saved it. But it wasn’t because God’s expectations were too high for my pathetic leadership and creativity. It’s because I was too ashamed to show God I couldn’t do it myself.

Four months later, God and I are finally reuniting in the secret place. I show up late and not often. I don’t have much to offer and my wounds are bare before Him. But He meets me there. Always. As time moves on I’m learning to ask for direction again, one step at a time. I’m knee-deep in the means, letting the ends take care of themselves.

Endnote: Last Sunday my roommate moved out of Orchard House, another painful reminder that our project was over for good. I was feeling a bit defeated as we sat together in church, my wounds still open. As our pastor preached the gospel, he zeroed in on the essential path of community. He passionately declared God’s heart for community – and he pointed right at Becca & I, almost as a way of defining it. Maybe we didn’t fail. Maybe we found exactly what we were looking for, and more.