End of Trail

"There is no reason to ever get lost."

THE MAP POINTED THE WAY, told of every road crossing, all the rivers and streams, that place where you’d go through the valley. The map depicted the mountains and gave them a name. It showed the cities along the way. Yet lost amidst the trees, I questioned its validity and opted for a shortcut which seemed to head there quicker, except spinning in place, sometime later, east looked like west and south and north were amazingly close together.

When Jesus sent the Comforter to live in us, to be our Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby (John 14:16 AMPC), His intention was to provide us with the map. And not just the map but the Mapmaker, the One who’d traveled the entire distance and knew every rock and rill. Within us would be His temple, our hearts His altar, and communication between us and Him unending, forever. There’s no reason to ever get lost. Even if we can’t read the map and have no idea how to make out that map-instruction thingy, we have Jesus and the Spirit and our heavenly Father at our side.

We detour all the time. We take our own advice, or our best friend’s advice, or our parent’s advice because it seems right and it sounds good, when what we ought to have done was to sit down and worship and pray and get the directions straight. “But Aunt Jo said if I did this and then switch here for there, I’d arrive on time.” God is gentle. He is kind. And patient and longsuffering. And never off track. If we’d have asked, we’d have gotten a soft no and saved ourselves the rocks in our shoes. Because we didn’t, we’ve lost sight of Him, and the map is wrinkled and a little wet.

The tears in our eyes resemble the fog in our gaze. The love in His outweighs our mistakes. He cleansed us of it anyway. What we didn’t deserve, having the map, He provided at His own expense and included with it all the left and right turns we would ever come up against. And the resets. Those times when we’d follow the owl’s prolonged tones and lose our own. Even struck silent, He’s ever leading and making footprints with bright-shiny arrows that we can follow, His touch tender, His voice a whisper, His strength greater than anything sent to push us aside.

Because sometimes there’s the wind and occasionally the rain, but God’s got an umbrella big enough to cover us all. And then other times, He simply smiles and says to jump in the puddles because the road that we’re on might be clay where we’ve started but will one day become golden and lead straight home.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way.” (Psalm 37:23)
Photo by Yann Allegre on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com