"Father God, just for today
Help me walk the narrow way.
Help me stand when I might fall.
Give me your strength to hear your call.
May my steps be worship;
May my thoughts be praise;
May my words bring honor to your name.
May my steps be worship;
May my thoughts be praise;
May my words bring honor to your name."
Help me walk the narrow way.
Help me stand when I might fall.
Give me your strength to hear your call.
May my steps be worship;
May my thoughts be praise;
May my words bring honor to your name.
May my steps be worship;
May my thoughts be praise;
May my words bring honor to your name."
You might be tired of looking at these lines, but I'm not quite thorough talking about this song. It does not issue as easily from my lips as it did a few weeks ago. I have been struck between the eyes lately concerning what I must have thought this song meant. I am ashamed to say this, but I think I must confess that I really wanted this song to mean something akin to this:
"Father God, again today,
Help me walk like yesterday;
Help me stand; don't let me fall
Where I can't see ahead at all.
May I keep on stepping
On this path I know;
May I march with eager, cheerful tread
Down this path familiar
With your hand in mine.
Satisfied with marching straight ahead."
Help me walk like yesterday;
Help me stand; don't let me fall
Where I can't see ahead at all.
May I keep on stepping
On this path I know;
May I march with eager, cheerful tread
Down this path familiar
With your hand in mine.
Satisfied with marching straight ahead."
First, it occurred to me that my road needed to narrow quite a bit. I was letting myself off too easy. Living in the same old well-behaved, behaviorally disciplined way was really not capturing the spirit of Jesus's words in Matthew 7: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate, and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." I have been glibly asking to be promoted from a pilot of a VW Jetta to a 747 in one fell swoop (or "one swell poop," as my friend Candy says!) rather than understanding that to seek the promotion means that I must take the training and even the tests that will prepare me for the job.
I hope all this doesn't sound like works-oriented salvation. Actually this has nothing to do with salvation at all; it has everything to do with what Jesus, in Matthew 7, called "life." (Sure, the first part of his statement did refer to destruction, but that was for those who are traveling a very broad highway and going through a cavernously wide gate. By the grace of God, I do not suffer from the delusion that life consists of seeing how big a swath of pavement I can cover before I fall off the shoulder of the highway and and then into the ditch. I KNOW that the Good Life can only be found within the Master's shadow, and I'll bet, if you're reading this, you do too.) This has to do with continuing to grow rather than resting in our laurels-- continuing education, if you will. Jesus seems to be inviting us to a narrower and narrow way because that is what will lead us to a higher and higher road. That is the only way we can achieve what Paul calls going "from one degree or glory to the next."
Pay close attention to what Jesus talked about most (go back and read the Beatitudes, for instance). It seems to me that the reason very few find that "life" He was talking about in Matthew 7 and in the Beatitudes and all those other places where He talks that crazy talk about down leading up and last being first, is that we have found a few things we do well, and so our goal quietly becomes just to maintain our status quo. Just don't rock the boat for these remaining twenty or thirty years I have left.
But a great new adventure begins when we come upon a narrowing of the road (attitudinal issues like righteous indignation and pride and going blindly, but cheerfully and faithfully, without a map) and decide, even at this late hour of our lives, to commit ourselves to some new training by grabbing firmly onto our Master's hand and walking bravely ahead into uncharted territory.
I hope all this doesn't sound like works-oriented salvation. Actually this has nothing to do with salvation at all; it has everything to do with what Jesus, in Matthew 7, called "life." (Sure, the first part of his statement did refer to destruction, but that was for those who are traveling a very broad highway and going through a cavernously wide gate. By the grace of God, I do not suffer from the delusion that life consists of seeing how big a swath of pavement I can cover before I fall off the shoulder of the highway and and then into the ditch. I KNOW that the Good Life can only be found within the Master's shadow, and I'll bet, if you're reading this, you do too.) This has to do with continuing to grow rather than resting in our laurels-- continuing education, if you will. Jesus seems to be inviting us to a narrower and narrow way because that is what will lead us to a higher and higher road. That is the only way we can achieve what Paul calls going "from one degree or glory to the next."
Pay close attention to what Jesus talked about most (go back and read the Beatitudes, for instance). It seems to me that the reason very few find that "life" He was talking about in Matthew 7 and in the Beatitudes and all those other places where He talks that crazy talk about down leading up and last being first, is that we have found a few things we do well, and so our goal quietly becomes just to maintain our status quo. Just don't rock the boat for these remaining twenty or thirty years I have left.
But a great new adventure begins when we come upon a narrowing of the road (attitudinal issues like righteous indignation and pride and going blindly, but cheerfully and faithfully, without a map) and decide, even at this late hour of our lives, to commit ourselves to some new training by grabbing firmly onto our Master's hand and walking bravely ahead into uncharted territory.
(Today's photo is Bryson and Larry on a steep section Appalachian Trail in Maine last month.)
