The Quest...

The past year has been a tumultuous one for me. I could complain about the gory details, but I am choosing to praise God for His providence in my life. In leaving my Pastorate and stepping into the unknown, I have experienced that God is Sovereign, and He is good.

There were two roads. Entrances to the paths looked similar at first, almost indistinguishable. I chose one, at least I think I did.

The width of the road does not exceed my feet. One in front of another my steps carefully trod the narrow road. Hedges separate the road to my right, the one not chosen, and a chasm openes beneath my path. Sparsely placed green leaves spottily hide where I might have been. All at once the beam on which I balance begins to dim.

My feet are shadows, my steps a mystery. My head spins, I wonder if I had taken the wrong path. It is so close. Through the hedges I see it winding, wide and easy, flat and obvious. A glance at my own trail reveales no more than my next step. My toe bumps something. Dead. He's dead. So is she. Climbing over corpses in the dark is not pleasant.

As my tears fall they are married with drops from the sky. Wind and rain come.

Will I fall into the eternal darkness below? Will the buffeting cease? Will the rain drown what little desire I have to walk?

A cord of rope seems to be around my waist. Some cord or chain pulls me straight again. The path is straight too. But I am in pain. I am unsure.

Occasions sometimes call for me to glance at the hedge separating the roads, mine and the other. The smell of peat and earth fill the air, and my balance is strengthened somehow by it. The rain has stopped. The hedges have drunk their fill.

Now those bushes bristle with greenery, and seeing through them is difficult. As I strain to see, I trip.

I get up.

I stumble.

I am not crushed. I keep walking.

Something is coming ahead. Something in the hedge, something protruding...

A hand. A limb has found it's way through the branches. I stop.

A face is only dimly visible. As my eyes adjust, I am taken back. There are many faces. All are calling, some are familiar. "Come, come. Come back where you belong. Come and feel the soft earth on your feet. Come and tread where the roads are winding and rolling. Come and see us again. Live as we live, eat as we eat, drink at our tables. Come and rest your tired feet in our houses."

The cord pulls. It's not that I don't desire the ease of their road. I cannot accept it. I cannot cross the hedge, and the danger below is very real. In fact, I cannot see through the leaves at all anymore. There is only the next step.

One more step.

The faces turn, "Turn back!"

I chose this path. At least I think I did. I must press on not because it is safe, or because it is pleasurable. I must pursue this path because I was born for this very purpose, and the cord compels me. It does not matter if it is the easier road. It matters that the one who is pulling on the cord knows where I am going.

For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil. 1 Peter 3:7