You're Getting Warmer

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..."