THE WAY FORWARD

Sometimes the way forward is clear. You made a decision to do a certain thing: go to school, accept a job, have a child.  The decision set the path. Now how that job is done, that child is raise, that school is navigated may not be clear, but at least there is some direction.

But, the way forward isn’t always as clear as we would like. We may feel as if we are dropped into the middle of a wilderness. We don’t know how to get out. There are no paths to follow. We have no compass to give us direction. We are not even sure what getting out of the wilderness would look like. 

This is what happens to us when we have lost something that has given us a clear sense of ourselves, our identity. When we lose a parent, a child, a spouse, a career—those things in our lives that are central to how we know ourselves—we often feel lost and unable to make our way forward. 

How do we go forward when this happens? First, it is always helpful to know that if the path forward is clear, it may not be your path. Our choices, our decisions and where they lead only become clear in the living of our lives. We don’t know how each day will turn out.  

Therefore, the way forward is one step at a time. We don’t know if the direction is right so we take a step and see where it leads us. Then we take another one. If we take a mis-step, we back up and try another direction—one step at a time, not beating ourselves up for our mis-step. This is the way forward in life. 

Helen Keller said, “If life is not an adventure, it is nothing at all.” Living life one step at a time takes courage. Take heart!! Be kind to yourself. See where the adventure leads.

SPIRITUAL PILGRIMAGE: COLLECTING TREASURES

When we leave home and begin our journey to the sacred future, we discover that we have to grieve the loss of home and open ourselves to a world where we can't rely as much on the way things were done at home as we have to rely on strangers to help us find our way. Thus we discover strangers who help reveal new dimensions of ourselves to our own self-understanding.

But, when we are out on the road to that unknown future, we also have the opportunity to discover some internal strengths that we didn't know we had. When I was in an important transition in my life and the familiar people and roles were not available to me, I had to try to survive in new ways. Before the changes occurred in my life, roughing it was staying in a Motel 6 rather than a Holiday Inn. But, as I was making my way around the country discovering my new sense of self, I traveled with a tent and a cook stove. I learned to sleep on the beach under the stars and cook a great cup of coffee over a fire.

In traveling outside my familiar spaces, I discovered that I had not only the capacity to survive on much less, but that I liked the feeling of strength and freedom which that discovery offered. In the wilderness of the soul, I discovered treasures within my own make-up that I had never seen before. The familiar things that I had surrounded myself with had insulated me not only from having to adapt to the discomfort of traveling light, but also insulated me from the treasures within myself that I discovered in the discomfort.

So, as you journey through life and occasionally leave home, or when home somehow leaves you out in the cold, see what you might pick up on the road. See what strengths you might have that you never knew you had. Those discoveries can enrich your life when you return home. They can enable you to live with less fear because you know strengths you may not have known before.

SLAVE MENTALITY

[This post is the second in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders' devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in Joshua 5:9-12]

The Hebrew people had suffered it all.  They had been free but famine drove them into hunger.  Their hunger drove them into Egyptian slavery.  In their suffering they cried out for liberation.  Moses was sent to lead them to freedom.  They discovered that freedom isn’t easy.  Their wilderness wandering confronted them with fear and terror, anger and frustration.  Their interminable wandering and fear stripped them of their dependency on slave masters and opened them to trust in the God who accompanied their ancestors Abraham and Sarah.  They knew loss and pain.

But, now they were moving into the land that had been opened to them.  They crossed the Jordan freed from their identity as slaves but uncertain of their identity as Israelites. They created new symbols to represent the journey.  They reclaimed practices to remind them of their identity.

They discovered that, freed from their dependency on slave mentality, they were being called to a new beginning, a new self-understanding. They no longer could count on manna.  They were now confronted with planting, harvesting and securing their own food.  The work of deconstructing their identity as slaves was over.  They were now in a land where they could construct a new people.  They had work to do.

We too move through wilderness places where we lose our sense of identity and security.  Like our Hebrew ancestors, we too experiment and learn from our experience.  We too receive forgiveness from a wandering God. 

But, then it comes time to embrace our freedom and contribute to the building of a new self.  God works to help us forgive the past so it doesn’t control our future, but we have a responsibility to contribute to the emerging of the new self.  What work are you now doing to create your grace-filled forgiven self?

Accompany us, good God, as we wander and embrace our new creative energy as we become your new creation.