My Way

 

                                                                                                                                     March 21, 2023

There are certain seasons that seem to come with more questions than answers.  You know, those seasons where the weight and silence seem overwhelming?  It’s not just the idea of things not going my way, it's that I'm uncertain as to what my way even means.  I struggle with my way.  I like my way.  I always have.  I don’t like my way to be micromanaged or dictated to by outside voices.  There is a reason it’s called my way.  

 

There is a selfishness to my way that is captured by my pride, my ego, my ambition.  It wakes up speaking to me even before I fumble in the darkness to find that ever elusive snooze button.  It clammers for space and attention in my mind like the gnawing pangs of an empty stomach.  It finds its way into my identity and purpose, clouding my vision as to who I am as a child of the King, because my King cannot be King in the midst of my way.  They cannot coexist.  He cannot be Lord and yet bow to my way.  

 

I wrestled with my way today as I walked through Romans 1.  Paul attempts to warn and plead with believers to identify this crab grass of my way that sprawls across our hearts like a withered lawn on a hot Texas July day.  See, like an invasive weed takes root, my way begins to produce an unrighteousness even in the best of soils.  It suffocates the truth in my life.  It chokes out His voice and replaces it with mine.  

 

I wrestle with this pursuit of righteousness, like the endless quest of ridding the obstinate weeds from the fresh soil in the garden of my soul.  See Paul makes the claim with a certain ambiguity, which is meant to bring clarity, “The righteous shall live by faith.”  But at first glance that is not as clear as it should be.  Paul is saying, “The one who by faith is righteous shall live.”  I began to see that I don’t have faith because I’m righteous.  My righteousness is the very reason I have faith, but not in my righteousness, His.  My way is rooted in the idea that I’m pursuing my own righteousness, but Christ declared there are none righteous, no, not even one.  

 

I know what it feels like to sense my life slipping away with the passing of each minute, hour, or day.  My joy, my hope running through my fingers as limited grains of sand held by my frail finite fingers.  What do I do with the season where there are more questions than answers?  Where I’m suffocating because of the pursuit of my way, what do I do?  I must recognize what brings life.  

 

I’m reminded of the backyard hose we as kids would drink from on those scorching summer days where we were “encouraged” to play outside.  If you were the unfortunate one to drink from the hose first, you experienced the taste of rubber lava. It wasn’t the water that was different on the front end, it was the hose that made the water less appealing.  The hose had sat in the piercing sun, looped around itself, openly exposed to the heat.  However, if you allowed the water to run for just a minute or two the water would change the environment of the hose.  The water dictated the temperature, not the hose.  

 

My way must allow the water of the Spirit in my life dictate the temperature.  However, that can only happen when I spend the time to let it run through me.  Through my heart, my mind, my soul with the purpose of exposing my way in exchange for His.  Recognizing that silence in my life is the product of my way crushing the beautiful sound of His way.  Its living in the knowledge of His righteousness verse the pursuit of my own.