Make A Way
I believe You will make a way for me and provide for me, if only I trust You and obey. (from Brendan Liturgy, Part XVI in Celtic Daily Prayer)
It’s fun to plan a vacation or chart a course to reach the next goal at work. This love of planning takes place in many areas of my life: money management, home improvement, career and retirement planning . . . even in relationships. Clearing out obstacles and making a way to get from A to B satisfies a need I have to arrive at a project’s completion.
However, after a while this focus on planning for the future feels empty. Yes, I’ll likely be reach get to the end of various projects and have some material security as I age. But if I’m honest these step by step plans that rely primarily on my abilities create a fence around myself and can diminish life. Something seems off in such a world; the path is cold and desolate. My means and ability are small, so if they are all I can rely on, yes, the way will be limited. It can be no more.
Contrary to the advertising of brokerage firms or insurance companies, I don’t have to create a stable future in order to be secure. During Jesus’ final hours with his disciples, before the officials took him away to try and crucify him, he spent time outlining a new way for his followers to live. The world they had known in being with Jesus for three years would be torn away. In the midst of this reality, Jesus says:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:1-6)
He didn’t give them a way to help themselves. No, he shared a means that was beyond any of their control or conception. He presented himself as the Way. Through the lens of today’s culture, this is an insane plan, especially knowing what the future held in the hours immediately after he said this. The more rational way to plan for the future would be to make sure the initial arrest didn’t happen and/or that each disciple would be able to return to their jobs after Jesus left. Yet, even with such plans there is always a twinge of fear, of what if— both that the way will erode and that the way we are on is wrong.
Taking Jesus’ words at face value requires turning away from the messages we constantly hear, even sometimes from the pulpit. It requires putting our trust in the One who won’t fail even if we don’t know what that means.
Looking back, I see where God has made a way with career, friends, family, daily care - in very specific ways. Many times in spite of myself. As one of many examples, one Sunday I remember feeling utterly rejected from a relationship I was trying to keep going even though I knew it was bad for me. I was in tears most of the day. My body was wracked with emotions. The next day I had to give a presentation to the Cinergy Foundation about a large gift to support the Cincinnati Zoo’s Education Department. It was ready, but I wasn’t. Still, I went to the boardroom and gave the presentation. Surprisingly, the board accepted the request and even asked me to take a position at the Zoo to implement the proposal. This unexpected and unasked for way set me on a whole different path in my career and life.
It took me awhile to walk away from that relationship and from trying to make a way that didn’t work. Even so, God was laying a different path for me to follow. He did not leave me alone. The challenge now is to not turn away again. Henri Nouwen’s words from The Inner Voice of Love are an encouraging reminder: “Your main question should always be whether something is lived with or without God” (24). We can do this because Jesus has invited his followers to be with him, the Way, wherever along the path of life we find ourselves.
