The other day I taught my five year old grandson how to play
one of my favorite childhood games.
First you pick an object to hide; in our case it was Steve from
Minecraft. Then, the Hider hides the
object and must give the Seeker
directions to the hiding spot by telling them whether they are getting warmer
or colder. The warmer or hotter you are,
the closer you are to the object. The
colder you are, the farther away you are from the object.
It took my grandson awhile to get the hang of the
directions. He would get an idea in his
head of where he thought Steve was going to be, and no matter how cold I told
him he was, my grandson would continue fruitlessly burrowing under pillows
while I said things like, “You’re freezing; Brrrrr”, to no avail.
Eventually, however, he learned to listen to the temperature
clues and was able to find Steve with no trouble at all. I was pretty patient with my grandson as he
was learning to find his way to Steve, but it occurred to me that I am not always
patient with people who are finding their way to the hidden treasure of the
gospel.
My own journey of discovery has been long and meandering,
and God has always been infinitely patient with me as I peered under furniture
or behind doors while he was saying, “Beware, deep freeze!” Or, just as he was telling me that I was
getting “Warmer, warmer, warmer”, I would veer off toward a closet or a cabinet
where I rummaged for long periods of time, despite the bitter cold.
But, I’ve noticed that when I see people poking around the
same furniture or digging through the same closet contents that I went through
at an earlier point in my travels, I tend to feel impatient with their
slowness, or contemptuous of their inability to follow clear directions. I make judgments about their intelligence and
even question their salvation.
The fact of the matter is, I have no way of knowing where
someone else is on their spiritual journey.
I don’t know at what point they started and I am certainly not in charge
of giving them directions. My
understanding of grace at this point in my life is so radically different from
what it was in my twenties, that if someone had told me then what I would
believe now, I would have thought they were crazy! And, if I had actually
believed they were telling me the truth, I would probably have been deeply
concerned for my older self; just like I’m appalled now when I look back at
what I believed back then.
I’m starting to realize that it is no more right for me to
act like I’m the gospel purity police for others than it is for others to act
like they are the moral purity police for me. Mildred Wynkoop once said, “When human beings
take over the task of the Holy Spirit in keeping one’s neighbor pure, the job
is too big and force supersedes persuasion and becomes a virtue.” There is such uncomfortable truth in that
statement. Whenever I begin to think it
is my job, rather than the job of the Holy Spirit, to change someone’s mind,
heart, behavior or direction, I will, to my shame, inevitably end up using force,
and feel virtuous about it.
Instead, I believe that God calls me to love others as I
have been loved; to be as patient with those who appear to be detoured or
stalled on the journey as God has been patient with me. I believe God asks me to remember my own
travels and how arrogantly misguided I was and, therefore, to approach others
who might seem obnoxious with respect, tender concern and compassion rather
than derision, anger and rejection.
There’s a verse in Isaiah which gives me great comfort and
hope for all of us in our search for truth.
It is found in chapter 35, where Isaiah is talking about a highway which
is called the Way of Holiness. Some of
the translations put it a bit differently, but I believe the English Standard
Version is true to the original text when it says in the last part of verse 8
that this highway “shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are
fools, they shall not go astray.”
Jesus, himself, is the Way. It is the job of the Holy Spirit to draw us
to Christ and then to guide, direct and correct our steps as he leads us into
all truth. We are not responsible for
anyone else’s journey. We are all fools
who are kept on the path by the grace of God alone, as his Spirit continues to
patiently say, “You are getting warmer, no, colder, warmer, warmer..."