Eastridge Special Forces
The Wounded Hearts and the One Path
I have a son, Wesley, whom I love deeply.
Yet, despite his 3.7 years on the planet, he believes he knows best.
He runs from the car in the midst of a busy parking lot. He crosses the street to investigate something on the other side, forgetting to hold someone’s hand. He yearns to play with the older boys in the playground but has yet to master more than hit-and-run play.
And being a parent, I often have to turn the tables and examine my own life.
I often think I know best how to live this life. I may buy something I feel is important, but we don’t have the budget for. I may eat or drink unhealthily not caring what it does to my body. And I may bruise (well no, I do bruise) my relationship with my wife with insensitive comments or poor humor even though that is not my intention.
And, yes, I have a laundry list of other wrongs, but that is not the point here. My son seeks to know the wonders of the world, and yet he is so naïve to the dangers. I am not so naïve but my heart has been wounded by the peoples and experiences my journey as a youngster brought. Thus, I may be just as careless or reckless in some ways as my son. The difference is my choices are a little twisted.
So, when I translate this to my journey with Christ, I have two choices? I can follow the “to do” list many church members seem to evangelize (to get things done right, be guided by our morals and take whatever clarity we see in each situation). There are numerous books and tapes on the seven steps to righteous living, twenty-one Christian leadership skills, and four-step program to get right with God. It’s almost the tips and techniques for Christianity without Christ.
Or we take the dangerous steps of walking the narrow path in God’s story for our lives, where we are His ally but nothing is going to be safe or secure (we enter the unknown, naked, with only a little faith). He will take us into our greatest fears and weaknesses to purge our inadequacies through faith. He will make us dependant upon hearing His voice to proceed or wait until the last minute for a financial help. It's so scarry.
Yet, in return I will find healing for my heart.
Let me show you some other people who chose the narrow path: A man who was asked to do a bloody sacrifice on his own favored son. Conventional wisdom didn’t allow for a fugitive to return to a nation he committed murder in where his kin were held as slaves… to confront the God/king about spiritual matters. No one would send a newlywed maiden to risk her life before a similar king. What general would reduce his army from 32,000 to 300 soldiers? Or how about taking a city by marching around it and blowing trumpets? No one would ever advise Jesus to give up and surrender himself to the Roman and religious leaders to be crucified.
We need to examine our lives. And though God is wild and unpredictable, He has the path to real purposeful life on this world.
You have made known to me the path of life Ps. 16:11.
In all the twists and turns of life, in all the ambushes the enemy prepares, we need God to find the narrow path that gives life abundant.
Seek Him!
Scott Coombe