All Roads Lead

In all of human history (though I can’t prove it because my history is so short) people have been beckoned to the road. There is something written into our soul’s DNA that makes us long to go somewhere- somewhere else. There will be people who won’t actually go somewhere else, but they will  still long for it and find some mild satisfaction in reading adventure stories, watching the Amazing Race, or getting excited about a postcard from the crazy friend who went backpacking through Asia.

One way or another, we all want to go.

Our small tribe stopped about an hour into Oregon in Baker City to check out the Oregon Trail museum. For a guy who loved playing the Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe in elementary school, this was kind of a dream come true. It was thinking about those long-suffering travelers who walked in the footsteps pf Lewis and Clark’s expedition to explore the Oregon Territory that drove me to read all I could about the Oregon Trail in National Geographics and library books. 

While others were outside playing and learning to interact with humans, I was reading about long-dead people whose lives expressed a primal longing to leave what was familiar and go to what was seen as a Promised Land. They weren’t looking for milk and honey, but gold and 640 acres of land would suffice.

This is what is on my mind as we went to the museum that rested on a large hill next to- get this- a main artery of the Oregon Trail! We got to not only learn about these intrepid pioneers, but we actually got to walk where they walked. Our feet walked in the ruts left by teams of oxen and young families chasing their dream.

They didn’t know where they were going, but they were compelled to get there.

The similarities of their trek and our was not lost on us. Neither were the differences. The deep reasons why we are traveling and why they traveled may have been different in some substantial ways, but one thing is the same: we can’t not go. Our souls’ desire is always out there somewhere.

And even when we find it, we still want to walk the path deeper into it.

I could make reference to Abraham leaving home and going where the LORD sent him. Talking about that faith would fit. I could make reference to Moses, too, who kept leaving his home (once by necessity, the other by calling) in order to do what he was compelled to do by faith. Ultimately, I could reference Jesus who sojourned among us, leaving his riches in glory to be marginalized by those who borrow power from him.

But, what comes to mind the most is Psalm 16:11. Adrienne read Psalm 16 to us in the car as we drove and I needed to be reminded of it. Our deepest primal longing is not to see where the grass might actually be greener, but to the source of the desire to see green grass. Somehow, at the end of all of our longings is not soft St. Augustine under our feet, or acres of land in our name, but The Way before our faces:

“You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Psalm 16:11

I risked dying of video game dysentary as a 5th grader because, somehow, I longed for traveling a path that brings life. Now, I am learning, that it isn’t as much about going (as important as that can be) as much as it is knowing the One who put the wanderlust in my heart that can only be satisfied by him.

Desert Springs in a Dry Soul

There is a different beauty to the Albuquerque desert that is hard to describe. The last two days I have   often stopped what I am doing to soak in the majesty of the mountains in the East and stare over the rolling desert to the West. The harsh landscape seems to quietly beckon us to pay attention to it and to see through it to pictures of Beauty that the lush areas of the world do not paint for us. There is just something about this desert that is attracting...even if it attracts us to the barren reality of being dry.

More often than not, I wake up "dry." This dryness does not come from a sense of missing the Father's presence, but the reality of where we are headed. There is a starkness to the reality that what we are going to do- the things that mean the most to us- we cannot do. I cannot work hard enough, pray enough, say the right words enough, be holy enough, be strategic enough, be wise enough to do what needs to be done.

This is too big for me and I do not (in and of myself) have anything to give that will transform people's hearts.

Drinking in the reality of that is scary to me. When it comes to these things I feel dryer than the desert I am visiting for a couple of days. Empty.

We have often said that we want to live a life that doesn't make sense unless Jesus is alive...and available.

That is why these words were like a cold drink of water to my soul this morning:

"When the poor and needy seek water,
and there is none,
and their tongue is parched with thirst,
I the LORD will answer them;
I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
I will open rivers on bare heights;
and fountains in the midst of the valleys.
I will make the wilderness a pool of water,
and the dry land springs of water.
I will put in the wilderness a cedar, the acacia, the myrtle, and the olive.
I will set in the desert the cypress, the plane and the pine together,
that they may see and know,
may consider and understand together,
that the hand of the LORD has done this,
the Holy One of Israel has created it."
(Isaiah 41:17-20)

The heights of the Sandia mountains are bare because the snow is gone. There won't be a river flowing from the mountains until the next snow melt. The desert around us does not erupt with fountains of water. It soaks in any water it can find and holds it, greedily, to itself. It does not share.

That's the point. If people's thirst will be quenched it won't be from the barrenness of our own wills or dutiful action...it will be an eruption of a river of God's grace from the overflow of his will and his work. If what I believe is God's vision for our lives will happen it will be because he made water flow where we least expected it and we all respond by drinking deeply of his lavish grace.

Most of all, when we drink deeply we will all know together that "the hand of the LORD has done this." We will all soak in the truth that what matters most in the world comes from our Father in heaven and worship and rest will erupt from our souls.

Father, we want to see the depth of how much we need you, how poor we are. I am scared of that, though because I will feel that it all depends on you. What if you don't come through? What if your grace seems meager to us? You have never failed us and you have never give "just enough." You are a lavish giver. Oh, Father, please open our eyes today to see your lavish grace to us and the people around us...so that we will drink deeply from the river of your delights and be satisfied in you. In Jesus' name.