The Trail of Life

My heart sees the world as a giant parable. Today, let's consider life as a journey.

We are each at a different point on our journey along this trail. If that's the case, then we shouldn't be surprised when we meet people who aren't standing at exactly the same place as us, or who are simply crossing the trail that we are on. No one is far out in front--we are all at varying stages even within ourselves. We are in motion. We are MOVED ALONG, by God--through the events of life, words from a friend, the sunsets, the stories of scripture, the gentle guidance of the Spirit, and the living Word--Jesus. God uses the most extraordinary things to move us along and shape us.

But all the time, He is inviting us to continue moving on the trail. To play our part in the story.

There are two particular trail-markers that we all seem to pass in the same order, however. The first trail marker says "OBEDIENCE," and the second says "FREEDOM." For some people, there are miles and miles of trail between. But I have seen some pass the first and come in sight of the second in only days.

God teaches us about this "spiritual path" in the very way that we start out as children and grow up to become adults.

Little children need to grow up with a healthy dose of Obedience, so they are basically subjected to absolute LAW--they have to learn what it is to submit, what penalties are, why it matters. It's a way of "artificially" teaching them morals. I say "artificially" because it's from the OUTSIDE-IN. The trouble is, all of mom's scoldings don't really make little Johnny into a good boy. Children start under Law (an objective, external standard), but little by little they are granted FREEDOM. They don't take it, they don't earn it. They are given it. It is this freedom that changes them from the inside out. Think about it.

If you were 25 and your mother still had to tell you how to behave, wouldn't that be ridiculous? No, somewhere in between ten and twenty, we are given the chance to make decisions. We are trusted to act on our own, and we are given the freedom to blow it. In an ideal world, young adults will have moved from LAW to FREEDOM in a graceful way, not in a tortured way. Sometimes it really is a painful walk, and we may stumble as we try to get away from mom's grip. Generally speaking, the sooner the parent trusts the child, the sooner the child begins to be changed inside. (That's all the wisdom you will get from me on parenting.) All the laws of the earlier years are just echoes in the ears. Living well gradually becomes automatic, a habit (with occasional screw ups, of course), our identity.

Our life as a child of God plays out in the same way. Those who have lived under the condemnation of the "commands" of the law are invited by Jesus to enter into His Freedom, accept His light yoke, and live as He did. He chose us, and He calls us Brothers. The most critical question in the WHOLE THING is this:

How can He trust us to be good?

And the answer is a sweet deal, the peak in the trail—after this, it's all downhill:

Because it was HIS work that made us good.

It was none of our doing, so, He either did a good job, or He failed in transforming us on the inside. HE changed us, and now He trusts us to listen to Him, abide in Him, walk with Him, follow Him, and fight with Him. Given the effectiveness of what Jesus did, and that it was ALL HIS DOING, what need do we have then for a new body of "commands" (what we have collectively called the Bible, or the New Testament), something to take the place of the OT Law? Wouldn't it place some of the burden for our safety on the journey back on our shoulders?

As Jesus' brothers, we are growing up because He trusts us to live in His life here on earth. And His life sometimes looks really irrational. We are the ones who "hear His voice." We do the odd stuff like the people in Hebrews 11. Jesus is on the throne, and He is reigning from there, and the Spirit is like the whisper of His wishes in our ears. He shares His strength and His authority with us, and we go push back the powers of darkness. We've been forgiven, and there is no more condemnation left to be handed out. Only a kingdom to advance.

What do we do with the collection of writings, then? That's the cool part. The scripture then becomes a story book. It’s like a time capsule, sitting beside the path, written by the hands of those who have walked this way before with God.

It's not (and never was) a science book, or a manual for Christian living. It certainly isn't a list of commands that we are to obey. That's western thinking, gone awry. Scientific, cause-and-effect thinking. We've read this phrase "the Word of God" and we equate it with the collective writings. Again, that's scientific. That isn't faith. Science books are either black or white. Stories come in black, white, grey, and all sorts of colors.

II Timothy 3:16 is a WORD PICTURE. God breathed, and men wrote their stories. That's not a scientific explanation, and it isn't the foundation for "authority of the scriptures." Unfortunately, our theological books have taken a scientific approach to explaining the scriptures. It's incredible, too large to comprehend without your imagination.

Ours is not a culture with many oral traditions--we love our books, and we trust our scientists. Unfortunately, we have lost our appreciation for what the spoken "word" can mean in a person, in a family, in a people. Look at the number of times Jehovah told the Israelites, "Tell your children and your grandchildren all the things that I have done for you here in Egypt." Jesus is that kind of message to the world--"Look at what I have done for you! He's right here, at my right hand!"

Friends, we need to tell each other our stories. There is healing there, and strength. And hope that I can make it another mile on this journey.

Instead, we've been trained by a thousand preachers that "the Word" is the bible. Actually, no it's not. The bible is a bunch of stories, poems, historical narratives, and letters--cumulatively, they represent a portion of all that God has revealed to us. A few examples of what it's like when God shows up and intervenes.

But only a few.

Back to the trail--every man and every woman needs to be close to those stories and letters in order to know what it is like to live as a believer. That is normal. We begin the walk closer to the Obedience trail marker than the Freedom marker. We need to be shown "how to live" for a time.

But, like Paul says, we should be growing as the miles go by. The invitation of the New Covenant is this: walk with Jesus. Hear His voice. Live in freedom. It might only sound like a voice calling from the path, far ahead, in the fog. Those who have gone ahead and tasted this freedom, don't shout back at the people who are still reading the time capsule that is near the Obedience marker.

Tell them that freedom is up ahead. It's just up over that ridge, and you can see it from where you stand.