The journey

The path stretches ahead, long and winding. Slow and gently rolling at times. At other times it twists and turns, climbs and drops, doubles back on itself and even has knots tied in the path that I must traverse to reach my Savior.

I once thought it was an easy path. One that all I had to do was take a long road through a meandering countryside where the weather was perfect, the sun was shining and there were big white fluffy clouds in the sky.

I was wrong.

Trials and tribulations. That’s what we’re promised. Nothings fair, the road’s not wide and smooth, the path isn’t free of rocks and kinks, the weather isn’t all sunshine and pretty clouds at the perfect temperature. The weather comes in spurts of blizzards and hurricanes interspersed with sunshine. The path is narrow and hard to see at times. Sometimes I can stand up and walk, other times I crawl. Sometimes I have to dodge branches and brambles. And sometimes I must wiggle through knots in the path that are pulled so tight I don’t think I’ll be able to get through them.

In one hand I cling to the map that is the Word of God, with the other I reach toward Heaven begging my savior to take me by the hand and lead me where He wants me to go.

I’m going along just fine, stumbling here and there, taking the weather and the twists as they come. Then I round a bend in the path and there before me my rocky road is headed straight up a mountain bigger than Mt. Everest, covered in thick layers of ice, in the midst of a blizzard that obscures everything. I can faintly see what looks like a series of knots in the path, pulled so tight I can’t see a spot to wiggle through.

Maybe it’s the blizzard obscuring the openings, maybe it’s the mountain but something brings me to a halt. I stand on this path that I didn’t choose, seeking my Savior that I want more than anything and I know I’m about to fail. The temptation to look back and see if I can see the stretch of path that was all sunshine and easy going just a few steps back beckons. I don’t want to look back. I don’t want to go back. I like the path I’m on.

I stumble to a stop. Something inside warns me that this is about to get very, very difficult. My heart cries out to my Lord. Silently. Begging Him to clear the path. If only the path would stop here, if only I could stay in this place forever. But I can’t. I want to keep forging ahead, growing closer to my Lord. But the temptation is there none the less.

I take a few steps forward my hand stretched toward Heaven, my map now clutched tightly to my chest. And I stumble. Those aren’t small rocks on the path. They’re large and round, mixed with slick mud that tries to pull me in and hold me in place. I struggle to gain my footing and continue down the path. Mud latches onto my feet weighing me down, slowing my steps. Icy wind slams against me with every step. It blows through my clothes and bombards me until my fingers are frozen and I can no longer feel my feet.

And still I stumble forward.

But as that mountain looms before me, as those knots in the path grow ever closer my steps grow slower, my feet hit a patch of ice and as I slide back down the path my emotions take over. And my flesh begs to demand of my Creator what He was thinking. The questions flit through my mind to wonder why He gave me this path. When thorns grow up in front of me, as they tear at my clothes I push them aside along with the questions. It’s not my place to question my Lord. And I keep going.

Slower now. My teeth are chattering from the cold, snow is sliding down my neck, mud has coated my feet. But the path keeps going. It’s like an escalator. I can’t stop it, can’t stop my forward momentum I can only go forward. Placing one foot in front of the other, struggling up the slick and icy path. Through the swirling white I can just make out enough of the path to see that before I reach the knot I must climb straight up the mountain. Just to the left of the path there’s an easier way, it gently moves over hills that slowly go over the mountain, but here in front of me is a sheer cliff that I must scale.

So scale it I do. I cling to it with bare hands and feet that are weighed down with enough mud to make me wonder if someone isn’t holding onto me, pulling me back. But I keep climbing.

This isn’t a mountain I wanted to scale. These aren’t the trials I wanted to face. Anger starts to take hold as I try and shake some of the mud off my feet. I lose a shoe but the mud hangs on. I claw at the rocky surface of the sheer cliff, trying to gain a hold that will keep me from sliding on the icy path. I tell myself I can’t get angry. It isn’t allowed.

I’m supposed to be thankful for everything that comes my way. But…the flesh battles the spirit. The anger wants to win. Hand over hand, one footstep at a time, I climb the cliff. I stay on the path. It’s so narrow now that I can feel open air on either side of me. I can sense the deep void of nothingness which I know isn’t really nothingness because lining my path is a broader path. The easy way. The way that runs right alongside where I’m at.

But I’m not on that path. I’m on this one. And I want to be on the one I’ve been placed on. Only today, in this moment, as I lose three fingernails to the sharp rocks cutting into my hands, as my feet slip and slide and are long past feeling numb from the cold and the ice, as my flesh and my spirit do battle against themselves. Today…I fight anger at the One that placed me here.

I shouldn’t feel it. I can’t allow myself to feel it. It isn’t my place to ask questions or to demand answers. I’m not allowed to blame my Maker for the path He placed me on. And the guilt sets in. Because I don’t want to ever be angry with him. But the battle keeps raging. The snow turns to sleet. It hits me with the fierceness of knives, it cuts through me and lands blow after blow against my heart.

And I raise my hand.

I beg for forgiveness.

Beg for help.

Because I’m on this path. Because at the top of this cliff I can see the knots I know I must try and find a way to wiggle through. And worse…I can know see something huge and dark and threatening looming there. It waits for me as I keep climbing. I want to stop. I want to stay hanging on this cliff forever. Going backward isn’t an option; hanging on the cliff with the threat looming over me isn’t an option, even though I’d gladly stay here forever if only I didn’t have to face that threat.

I release the anger and raise my hand toward Heaven knowing my Lord is reaching for me even though I can’t see Him. Peace is there but so is pain. The pain of the icy knives slicing into my heart, cutting chunk after chunk out of me. It’s shredding me and still I climb because I’ve been given no other option. I was placed on this path and I cannot get off. I don’t want to get off. But I don’t want to face the fog or the threat either.

And so the flesh and the spirit battle.

But I’ve found my Savior again. I can feel His hand on mine. I can feel Him lifting me up, holding me because I know I’m rapidly approaching that place when I can’t hold myself up anymore. The path has become too hard. It’s more than I can bear. And it keeps hurtling me closer and closer to the threat I can see looming, growing bigger and darker, at the top of the cliff. There’s no escaping the threat, no turning around, no avoiding it. I must keep climbing. I must struggle through the knots to reach the top.

And I must face the threat.

I know I won’t do it alone. I can’t do it alone. Already my legs are weak, my knees are buckling and my strength is about gone. It won’t be long now before I have nothing left to climb with and my Lord will have to carry me. I have no strength to get through the knots, no ability to scale the last of the cliff, and I know that I have nothing to fight the threat with.

I cling tighter to my Lord and let Him take my weight.

He’s going to have to carry me to the top, battle the threat for me, and see me safely over the mountain.

Because I can’t do it anymore.

 

Is Christ enough?

But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

1 Timothy 6:8

 

I wish there was a way to show the world the contentment that comes from Christ. I’ve been told my faith is hard, that it makes life hard. I’ve been told that others wouldn’t want to believe the way I do.

But the truth is there’s nothing easier. The Lord in His miraculous way, in His time, took from me the desires of this world and showed me the simplicity of living for Christ. He changed my heart.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Ezekiel 36:25-28 esv

This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. Hebrews 8:10 esv

I never sought the things of the world the way a lot of people do but I wasn’t free from idolatry and covetousness either. I’ve had my collections of things over the years, wasted money on stuff I didn’t need, went places I didn’t need to go. And worse wasted time on things that simply fade away, things that had no purpose for me, my family or the Lord.

What I didn’t know back then was that the more I chased the world, the more I longed for the things of this life, the less happiness I had. That’s hard to explain to most people. They simply can’t understand that in Christ alone does true happiness come. 73% of the American population claim to be Christians. That’s 73 out of every 100 people that will profess Christ in some way. You’d think with statistics like that we’d have a lot more happiness in our country. But we don’t. An internet search on depression in America revealed that 9% of Americans suffer from it. The CDC says there were 41,149 deaths from suicide in 2013. That means someone in America took their own life every 12.8 minutes in 2013 making suicide the tenth leading cause of death in the country.

Those numbers are astonishing but not surprising. And yet they don’t begin to take into account those that seek happiness through drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, gambling and the multitude of other things that people chase after while trying to find happiness and contentment. They don’t count the number of people that live for their jobs or loose themselves in movies, video games, or books.

Being a true Christian doesn’t make us exempt from any of those human emotions. But it does give us happiness and contentment in the simplest things. If we keep our eyes on Christ life and all its struggles become easier to bear, even when we feel like we’re drowning in trials and tribulations.

Can you see the wonders in a tree? Is there contentment in walking through the woods and seeing the Lord’s creation? Are you happy just seeing a smile on your child’s face? Does time with your husband, no matter the activity, make you feel happy and secure? Is Christ enough?

 

The love of money

No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

Luke 16:13

 

Covetousness. Idolatry. Love of money. All of these come up repeatedly in Scripture. There are more verses than I can cover in a blog post on them. I know many people that would never think that loving things is idolatry, nor would they consider it to be loving money. They might admit that it’s loving the world. Or they might not. Most people don’t see it. They can’t see it. In our westernized culture where life revolves around stuff, stuff, and more stuff, very little thought is given to what exactly we’re doing when we buy that something we just have to have even though we have no real need for it. We’re all guilty of this sin. We look at things and for some reason we need something, even people that live by what has been termed the minimalist lifestyle. If we only own 50 items we qualify as a minimalist by the worlds standards. But that doesn’t stop us from needing a newer phone, the latest laptop, or a new pair of shoes because the one pair we own is getting a bit worn. We simply need it. Or do we?

The Lord says otherwise.  

 And a ruler asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.’”  And he said, “All these I have kept from my youth.” When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.  Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!  For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”  And Peter said, “See, we have left our homes and followed you.”  And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers^[a] or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life. ”When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” Luke 18-30 esv

In Luke 9:2 He tells the disciples…

And He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal. And he said to them, “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not have two tunics.

In Luke 10:4 He once again gives instructions to those He’s sending out…

Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.

Prior to those verses when the disciples followed Him Scripture says ‘they left everything and followed him’(Luke 5:11), ‘And leaving everything, he rose and followed him’ (Luke 5:28).

These are only a handful of verses where Jesus either tells people to give up all they have or they do it willingly. In Mark 8:34-36:

 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.  For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?

All of these verses and more have stood out to me over the last week as I’ve read Scripture. It seems like each one jumps off the page when I come to it. I’ll admit that I fall into…maybe not a love of things, because my emotions are pretty distant from my belongings, but I do enjoy them, at least some of them. I recently bought not one but two different packages of pens with different colored inks, not because I needed them but because I wanted them. You see I enjoy writing and when I do it with a pen I like a higher quality pen and much prefer a selection of colors to write with. When I sit down with my Bible I usually have two different pens, with two different colors of ink, and a highlighter. When I write a letter to friends or family I prefer to do it with a pen I enjoy using and in a color of ink that brightens up the letter. I just like colored pens. Do I covet them? Once in a while. I can and do write with those cheap dollar a pack pens but they aren’t my preference. I have a few other weaknesses where I have to watch myself when it comes to the love of things. I know this and I try to keep a tight rein on it.

Luke 12:15 speaks to that very issue:

And he said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

These are only a handful of verses where Jesus either tells people to give up all they have or they do it willingly. In Mark 8:34-36 He says:

I have noticed in my own life, as I’ve drawn closer to Christ, I’ve become more emotionally detached from my possessions. I still have those favorite items- some I use regular, some I never touch, things that I hang onto because they bring back memories- usually of my children’s baby days, and a handful of things-like my pens- that just bring me pleasure when I use them. I hope that none of those put me into covetousness or idolatry. As I look back on my life, the way I used to be, the changes I went through on this journey to Christ, I can see myself the way I used to be, the love I used to have for many of my possessions, the times I coveted things simply because I wanted them. Now I’ve learned not only to be content with what I have but rarely do I find myself truly wanting something.

There’s no denying that in the world today there are simply some things that truly are needed. Getting to and from work or the grocery store becomes difficult, impossible in some locations, without a vehicle. Going without shoes because we don’t see the need for them will get us barred from most businesses. Some things are needed but where is the line between what we have to have for survival and loving money, or things, to the point that it becomes covetous? An internet search for ‘Bible verses about love of money’ returned numerous pages. I opened the first one which gave me a list of 100 verses. That was way more verses than I could work through in this post. With that list I think I could have written a book. Instead I’m going to let you look those verses up yourself if you have any interest in them and I’m going to leave you with one last set of Scripture:

If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,

 

Pulled onto the path

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,

Ephesians 1:11

 

I don't know when or where the journey began but I’m sure I didn’t choose the path, that I didn’t choose to take the journey. Maybe it started when I was born. Maybe when I was six and I said that prayer...you know, the one most preachers claim is the way to salvation. Yes, I did say 'claim is the way to salvation.' I repeated that prayer at the age of six and was promptly assured by my mother that I had just been guaranteed a spot in Heaven. The preacher made a big deal of it the next time we went to church. I was baptized not long after at the age of 7. From that point on I believed I would go to Heaven. There was nothing else I needed to do. That single prayer, followed by baptism bought my spot in eternity.

I'd like to say I had an understanding of what being a Christian meant. I'd like to say I sought the Lord's will in my life. I'd like to say I put the Lord first in my life, read my Bible, and loved others more than myself. But I can't say any of those things. Because I didn't do them. For me being a Christian was very much like a bedtime ritual. I brushed my teeth, went to bed, said my prayers.

You know the 'Now I lay me down to sleep, if I should die before I wake...' kind of prayers. They weren't even personal. Just something I memorized because they were taught to me as part of that bedtime ritual. They meant very little to me. Honestly, I probably worried more over where my favorite blanket and dolls were than I did those prayers.

I remember as I grew older I added in a few prayers of my own from time to time. I prayed that I'd find my lunch pass so I could go home for lunch and not have to stay at school because I didn't like what they were serving that day. I prayed God would remove me from an uncomfortable situation. But I never prayed for anything other than the most superficial things.

Time passed and I grew up. I made life altering choices based only on my own desires. I never knew to seek the Lord's will. Never knew to stop and wonder if I was living for Him. Somewhere in there he started drawing me to him. I turned to Scripture to see what God thought about a very few things. I doubted my salvation to the point that when asked 'if you died today do you know you'd go to heaven', I answered 'I don't know.'

But I'd prayed the prayer. Not just as a child, but again as an adult because I’d come to the conclusion that something I’d said when I was six couldn’t possibly be good enough to save me as an adult. So I prayed the sinners prayer again. And again. And again. I believed in Jesus. Went to Church, at least sometimes. When the Lord gave me a child with heart problems I learned to cling to God. I clung to Him when I had nothing else to cling to.

And that is the point that I can look back and see where I was pulled onto a different path than the one I’d always been on. If someone had asked me before I started this journey if it was a trip I wanted to take I most likely would have said no.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I’m where I am now that I’m on this path. But back then…back when I was a professing ‘Christian’ content to watch what I wanted, read what I wanted, say and do what I wanted, living my life the way I wanted barely touching my Bible, barely understanding it…back then if someone had asked me ‘would you like to take a trip down a broad path with a narrow gate, a path that will cost you everything but Christ?’…I would have most likely said no. I would have chosen the broad path with a wide open gate that would have left me where I was. The path that let me love the many possessions I had, enjoy the country music I loved, the romance novels I devoured almost daily…that would have been the path I would have chosen.

Or so it seems to me now as I look at my life today and what it was then.

Thankfully no one asked me. No one cared what I wanted. Thankfully the only One that made that choice was the One that holds my life in His hands. And He took away the life I had and gave me a new one. One I wouldn’t have wanted then but am forever thankful for now.

As I was pulled onto that path without my knowledge, without my consent,  I began to change. I didn’t choose to change, I didn’t ask to change, it just happened. One step at a time. He changed me from the person I was to someone that is so different now that when I look back on my life it’s like looking at someone else.

Somewhere along the way I started watching the things I said, being more choosy in the movies I read. Gave up the romance novels I loved. All because something came into my life to make me see that God may not like it.

Then those things narrowed even more. Movies I had thought okay…weren’t…because I saw or heard something that I knew went against God. Things happened in my life that cost me material possessions, a lot of which I treasured, over and over again until I got to the point that I looked at my belongings and saw stuff…stuff that I might like, or more often saw as something I just hadn’t gotten rid of yet or hadn’t been forced to part with. I began reading the Bible.

They were all little steps. Single steps that each one alone didn’t seem to add up to anything. Until the day I realized that all the ‘Christians’ I knew weren’t like me. Rather, I wasn’t like them. Their faith seemed to be at surface level while mine had grown roots so deep they were buried in the ground under my feet.

And I was seeing things in Scripture that no one else I knew did.

I couldn’t talk to anyone about what I was seeing, what I was feeling, because when I tried it created confusion and strife. It started arguments. They saw Scripture and life different than I did.

I no longer wanted to read those books, watch those movies, I was more careful in the things I bought… And I couldn’t talk about Scripture the way other ‘Christians’ I knew did. So I learned to keep it all to myself except for a few surface level statements that I knew wouldn’t cause strife. And I started thinking I wasn’t a Christian because if what I was seeing in others was what being a Christian was, than I wasn’t one. I didn’t know what I was but I knew I wasn’t like them.

From that point on I wasn’t sure what about me, about my faith, was different but I started looking for it in others. And finding it in very few.

But by then I had been changed. I had been drawn to the Lord, placed on a path I didn’t choose, pulled to Him through one tiny baby step at a time.

And now…

I am completely His.