There are places I have been, places I had thought I would settle in. Places I had thought I had arrived at. And now I quietly, sadly, laugh.
There are no destinations here. The world is all road, path. There are no settlers, only pilgrims.
I have been looking back a lot of late. It’s that season, time of life, graying hairs and all. From this vantage point, I can see more clearly routes that would have been wiser, with better vistas. Hard not to mourn the road I should have traveled, marked with more grace and less words, more love and less ruling. So I do—grieve, that is.
And then turn. For pilgrims must keep walking, driven on by the certainty of The Land ahead. Sorrow is a heavy burden. Best to lay it down. So I go, knowing Abba leads me on the way He knows I must take, to learn the things meant for me—then, now and tomorrow.
Heading out from here, the places of the past, their tales and their truths, urge me to take the hardest ways: the steep incline of self-control, and not the broad, flat road of controlling others…the precarious heights of mastering me, not the easy way of mastering any one else… the gritty narrow way of biting my tongue and nurturing a heart the loveth liberally.
I am still soft, aching for easy ways. Abba urges me on, though my feet be weary and my hope tired and, now and then, unsure that I have the mettle to go this hard way. I know it deep down: I don’t.
And He will carry me then.
Lord, I have taken easy ways…that led to barren places. Now I know: hard roads, steep soul-roads, break out onto the most breathtaking panoramas. Lead on, Lord. I am willing to go to Your good places. No matter how hard the path.
