It was right there all along. I had passed the intersection a hundred times, and I had never noticed it before. I didn’t know where it led, just another meandering country road heading deep between the hills. I had left it alone, unexplored, until this week. And it took me by surprise. On advice of some of my daughters and literally running short of time one day, I ran the path not taken. I wove along a black ribbon of asphalt through fields and past neat cottages with well-loved gardens and scenic red barns worthy of painting. Around each bend and over the crest of every hill, I confronted my fear of snarling unrestrained “yard dogs,” who lurk in the shadows beneath front porches eagerly anticipating the furious pursuit of anything that moves down their road, including a lone defenseless runner, bad dogs just having a little fun. That paralyzing panic was dissipated when on the course I saw only one pathetic little dachshund tied to a chain and a large black hound resting in the sun who didn’t even bother to lift his head. I heard roosters crowing, startled a small brown cow hiding himself in the coolness of a culvert, and yielded to the occasional pick-up and tractor that shared the roadway. The drivers greeted me with a Tennessee wave, a single index finger raised just slightly above the steering wheel. Each day that I ran this new route, I ventured a little further down the road, past yet another white clapboard Baptist church, pushing myself up the hillsides, and basking in what little shade the trees offered. It was a beautiful glimpse of God’s creation. And I had never known what I was missing.
What else am I missing? What paths are not on my radar, what roads go unnoticed, how much does familiarity blind me and bind me to the usual, what delights in life do I miss because I live as if adventure doesn’t exist, enslaved by puny thinking and afraid of fierce dogs that don’t exist?
I woke up in the middle of last night by a crowd of foes overwhelming me by their banners of despair and gloom, speaking deceit in loud voices of things outside my control and taking advantage of dormant worries that are always willing to jump in the brawl against me. And before I could head down that path, thinking wildly “oh dear, what can I do?” God planted another thought in my mind, NOT a cry of despair, but “LORD, show me how to navigate this situation. Reveal Yourself to me, YOUR way, whether a paved road, a path through the woods, or even into the thicket of the unknown where I have never dared to tread.” Sometimes the way to deliverance is straight through, face to face with what we fear, but never has to be done alone. I can struggle on my own, or I can seek His help in working through it, tapping into a different path of His own making, He who makes what was previously invisible now quite obvious, step by step.
And like that little country road, He reveals to us that which is new – new ways of looking at a problem, new grace in a tough relationship, new eyes to see solutions to which I was blind, a new heart to love others, a new mind to think Christianly about all things, new paths to enlarge my borders or to fulfill what is already set before me. And it may be that which is right in front of me all along.
Lead me, O LORD, in Your righteousness
because of my enemies;
make Your way straight before me.
Psalm 5.8
No comments:
Post a Comment