I remember being in 9th grade and hearing a fiery, young Dustin McCuen speak in chapel one morning about being a pioneer and a trailblazer.

I made up my mind that day that I officially hated those two words and that I refused to ever be a pioneer. The very word scared me. I even hated most of the Little House on the Prairie books because it was "pioneer literature." Pioneers did scary things and lived really (to be quite honest) dirty, humble, poor lives. I never wanted that life.

Then, during family camp of 2007, the Lord gave us one of the most impacting words I've ever heard in my life. Pastor Dutch Sheets spoke on being a Hebrew-one who crosses over, one who blazes a trail, one who is a pioneer.
If you'll permit me, I just want to list the 14 attributes of Hebrews that he gave that day:

1. They are forerunners and pioneers; and they are willing to go into the unknown
2. They have to leave some people behind
3. They go by faith
4. God gives them a promise and a dream
5. They live a life of decisions
6. They build altars--the place where things die
7. They are warriors
8. God makes covenant with them
   
9. God gives them a mountain
10. They are given the finishing anointing
    
11. They understand there are lines they cannot cross
12. They know there will be multiple crossings
13. They know the breath of God
14. They have to go through several levels of the river of God's Spirit

When he shared at Family Camp, it just wrecked me. The Lord said so clearly, "Why do you keep denying the way I made you? Why are you denying your identity? Look at yourself in the mirror and tell me that you are not a pioneer!" It was a very tough thing for me to settle with, but I did settle with the Lord, "I am a pioneer."

And now I've been seeing more of what that means. It doesn't look like sod houses, dirt floors, and covered wagons. For me, it looks very different. But I've been embracing it and I see now so clearly that I am a pioneer. I'm not afraid of that identity any more.

So this weekend, when Rick Pino sang Pioneer, the Lord did something so deep. He awoke something, and I'm not even sure what. I know the song, especially the last verse makes me want to bawl. But I feel like it is deeper than tears--it's an affirmation of identity and of destiny. It is a warning and it is a reminder. The lyrics seemed to me like the lighthouse seems to the sailor. The words keep haunting me:

What you have done others will do
Bigger and better, and faster than you
But you can't look back, you gotta keep pressing through
There's a wilderness pathway, calling you

Pioneer, pioneer
Keep pressing onward, beyond your fear
Only the Father goes before you
To your own frontier
You're a pioneer

But that isn't all. The other morning, I was reading the Psalms in the Message (fave!) and I came across this in Psalm 84:

And how blessed all those in whom you live,
whose lives become roads you travel;
They wind through lonesome valleys, come upon brooks,
discover cool springs and pools brimming with rain!
God-traveled, these roads curve up the mountain, and
at the last turn—Zion! God in full view!

I was just amazed!
I know that this is all coming for a reason. I feel as if a "wilderness pathway" is just around the corner, waiting for me.