Got To Go Through the Door

And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.  – 1 John 2:17

I woke early this morning, and I was praying.  That’s what I called it.  What I was really doing was worrying over balances in various monetary accounts while bringing to the Lord’s attention that I had been pretty faithful and generous lately in giving to His work.  It was as though my words were written on a screen in my head.  The word ‘I’ stood out and, though I didn’t see it, I knew there was a question mark by it. 

I’ve heard time and again that I am merely a steward.  Everything I have, the Lord has given me.  I am giving back only that which is His.  What do you give the God who has everything?  That was part of God’s response, but it went beyond that.  Who is this ‘I’?  Is it not written that ‘I’ have been crucified with Christ, that ‘I’ no longer live but it is Christ who lives in me? 

It’s not just, What have I got to give?  But WHO is doing the giving?  I’m not giving to God; God wants to give through me.  And money or whatever is the least of it.  It is being available and yielded to do His will. 

Mostly, in my case, I think it is getting my arguments, reasonings, rationalizations, and desires out of the way to clear the channel for God’s blessings to flow.  Why should I worry and stress about things when it is clear that God is the One moving and working and doing all this?  I know already from experience, some of which I know I have related, that the Lord has never put me in hole He didn’t already have a plan to get me out of.  He has put me in some tight spots.  They seemed that way to me going in.  In reality they were simply narrow doorways opening into new broader vistas. 

There is a narrow way we have to pass through.  The will of God can be an extremely strait, restrictive passage, but it is a passage to something.  It’s not a place where we will have to live.  We are going to live where this tight, constraining corridor takes us.  We’ll have plenty of room there -- until we come to the next doorway, and there will be another.  

What we learn in passing through the strait gates of God’s will is how worldly accretions have built up on us, like barnacles on a ship’s hull.  It all has to be scraped off now and then.  There are some things we have to leave behind when passing through the narrow way, and we are better for it. 

Forkin' the Road

Following up on yesterday’s post, I recall the words of Christ, “Strait is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life.” To get on the right road means that we have to pass through a very restrictive gate. There’s not a lot of room for baggage. It’s pretty much the shirt on your back. There is just no way we can turn some of our fantasies, our highly inflated opinions, our prejudices and preconceived notions such that they will fit through the narrow gate that lets out onto the road of life. As attached as we have become to that load, if we are going to move forward, we are going to have to leave it behind.

Sometimes I think the gate almost gets blocked by all the bizarre ideas that have been dropped on the other side of it. Maybe that makes it easier for some folks to find. Just look for the big pile of junk. The gate is right on the other side of that. Once we make it through the gate, the road remains narrow. It does not lend itself to accumulation. It can get lonely at times.

Jesus contrasts this narrow way with another road that ostensibly traverses the same country. The difference is that the other road is broad and well-traveled. There are many people on it. It is smooth, well-maintained and seems to follow a better route than the narrow, rough and steep way which the Lord would have us take.

The difference between the two roads is more than superficial for they do not end in the same place. The wide road leads to a great abyss, descending smoothly and gradually until the last few feet. All the while it presents a grand view of a gleaming, beautiful land. The traveler’s eyes are drawn to the illusion so that he does not realize until that last fatal step that he has come to the precipice.

There is yet a greater and more significant difference between the ways and that is what may accompany us as we walk the road. As I noted, the narrow way with its restrictive – perhaps I should say, exclusive entrance limits what we take along. The broad way had no such limitation, and one may enter it from any point. Then, again, there are many companions on the smooth, expansive path, while fellow travelers on the other course are rare. One in particular will not go along if we chose the easy way and that is the Lord, though there are many who walk it chanting His name like a talisman.

I am up against the same difficulty as yesterday because I am talking about things that diverge while occupying the same space. Jesus used the parable of the wheat and tares in the same field. The difference is not in the place they are but in the nature of what they are. I repeat, the roads appear to traverse the same territory, and, in fact, they seem to overlay one another for much of their extent. The road of life, though, is a razor’s edge we walk hand-in-hand with Christ that leads us safely across that great gulf into which those on the road to destruction plunge without remedy.

The broad road is the freeway of the world system. The narrow road is the King’s High Way.