Highway or Wilderness

In life, what are you looking for? There are people who look for the highway. They look for a smooth and easy place to live and walk, a place where it seems people are going somewhere and doing something. Highway people seem to have inner comfort by being with others, even if they are confined to one road and a standard view of life.

I like the highway because it takes me to the wilderness. So when I get to the wilderness I get off the highway and try to find a place without a path. To walk and see what others dread, is joy to me. This does not mean I have a need to be in danger, it just means my inner life is activated by the wonder of all that is lost to highway travel.

Much of American church life is highway life. People are instructed to run with group. You are called a break out leader if you build a highway. People call you adventurous if you tell great stories of the wilderness from rest stops on the highway. But if you choose to live in the wilderness, those on the highway will call you a fool, unbalanced, lost. Have you ever noticed that you can sell out and be completely committed to anything, sports, music, career, education, anything but God. When you sell out for an earthly thing you are committed, but when you sell out for God they want to commit you. They say you are lost.

Being lost is an awful feeling. I hate it when I get lost in all the traffic of life, when the demands of others drive out the desires of God, when people clamor for your approval and then cut you off on there way to be next in a long line. I love being lost in the wilderness. Just the reality of needing a guide, of finding that I am helpless, the surrender to my self and the dependence on God. When you get lost on the highway you can drive on for years and no one will ever question if you are going the right way. When you even think you are lost in the wilderness you are questioned every day.

"Is this the right step for me" is a daily question that is to slow and burdensome to those who run wide open on the highway. Yet asking that question daily, if not every hour is a question of communion and fellowship. I love, loving God and needing and seeking Him is my delight.

I just saw a great place to get off this highway. Gotta go!