“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”- C. S. Lewis
“Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”- Isaiah 44:22 (ESV)
In Chapter 2 (“The Art of the Turn”) of WayMaker, Ann Voskamp wonders how you let yourself feel any love when you’re drowning in rejection. Above all, it’s fruitless to waste your days waiting until things are painless to experience joy. Consequently, Ann underscores, you must find a way to believe. Because, Ann observes, love lives at peace with pain. Thus, the two will never divorce.
To love, the author states, you must possess enough tenderness to know suffering. Vulnerable enough to know hurt. Therefore, Ann asserts, there’s only one way to divorce yourself from any pain. You must divorce yourself from any love. The author adds:
“All feeling are not facts, but all emotion is the language of the soul’s motion, the language of the pilgrim, the language of the soul’s movement toward God.”
So, Ann counsels, here’s what to do when you find yourself on a way you wouldn’t choose — and can’t change. Choose to believe that you’re still chosen for a good way. For it’s the only way through.
However, Ann posits, that we, like Adam and Eve in Eden, always expect more. As a result, we find satisfaction only when we choose our own way, pick our own dreams, and take a bite out of our own choosing.
In conclusion, Ann notes, this points the way to surrendered trust:
“But maybe this points the way to surrendered trust without horizons in Him whose holy ways are higher than ours. We want things to go the way we choose — and God wants us to choose to trust His ways. We expect more — and God expects us to trust Him more. . . . Trusting God is no small thing: To God, it is everything. God wants to be chosen too.”
Today’s question: When have you found yourself walking back to the right road? Please share.
Coming Monday: the June Short Meditation, “In the rhythm of the wind”
Tomorrow’s blog: “Your chosenness destroys all aloneness”
