Just A Closer Walk ...

I once wrote of the “Way to San Jose”, and how to best to get there. Perhaps it is because I am a man, that I don’t take directions very well – even my own. (I even have a sweatshirt given to me by someone who probably knows me very well. It reads: “The Code of Manhood: Don’t ask for directions; I know the way”.

But I get lost so often ….

“I don’t start out to sin, to lose my way ….” But that’s not true. In the very first word of that thought, I was already getting lost: the word “I”. So often “I” start out, alone. Yet I know, as in the Way to San Jose, the certain way to get to San Jose is to take Him along, the one who knows the way. Yes, take Him, with all the baggage I sometimes perceive Him to bring along: His commands, His rules, His constant reminders along the way: “You’re going the wrong way!”

Sometimes I think of a journey with Christ as similar to one with a nagging wife. And that’s not a bad analogy, because often in my heart I think: “Look what you’re saying to me! Look what you ask of me!” And even sometimes, “Look how you hurt me!” Those words come so easily.

The problem with that way of thinking is largely one of emphasis. I say or think the word “you” in my statements, as if with my admonition He (or my nagging wife) must change. And He (and probably she) won’t, and you and I both know why. And it frustrates me.

I say or think “you”, but in truth my real emphasis is on the word “me”. What you’re doing to “me”. I’m worrying about me. My focus is on me, what I want, what I want to feel, where I want to go. ME, I. And even my words, as voiced or sometimes only thought, so often focus on me. No wonder I so often get lost in sin, I start out on my journey alone. When temptation comes, as it does so often, I get in my car and start driving to a destination, and I forget to ask HIM along, the one that knows the way to a better destination; the one who won’t let me get lost. If only I can get past the need to travel alone; to not be afraid to ask for directions!

Sometimes as I travel this life, I think I AM speaking to God; I can even look Him in the eye, briefly, and think we see each other clearly. I’m fooling myself. Most often, as I drive down the road, when I speak to Him and look Him in the eye, He is as the driver in oncoming traffic. I see where He is going; He is near my path, I can briefly even look Him in the eye, but then His car passes by and is quickly behind me, and I don’t really know where he is going – and it’s certainly not with me. And I fool myself into thinking we had some kind of “encounter” – when the truth of the matter is that if I REALLY had an encounter with Him at that point, it would have been in the form of a head on collision! That would have woken me out of my daydreaming!

If we really want to speak with God in our travels through life, He must be a passenger in our car; we must be going in the same direction. And if I am speaking to and REALLY LISTENING to Him, it won’t be as hearing a nagging wife, because my focus will not be on ME as we converse. We will have a real and true conversation because my focus will be on Him. And I’ll know that any directions He speaks, even if they sound like nagging at the moment, are out of a sincere, deep, and never-ending love. That’s how you feel about someone to whom you made a commitment to be faithful to forever.

He made a commitment to me to go with me to a wonderful destination, to get there with me – no matter how many times “I” lead us astray. He loves and admonishes me even as the Father does. Only my stupidity and stubbornness sometimes sees it as nagging, and forgets the underlying love I know is there.

I can drive through my life as if I alone am in charge, and I alone know the way. The key words there, of course, are “alone”.

I don’t want to be alone.

If you want to follow Me, you must renounce yourself.