Recently while driving, I came upon a road called “Willing Way”.  It immediately caught my attention.  “Are you willing?”, whispered His still small Voice.  And, in that holy moment, fully aware that He fully knows me, all I could manage to say was, “I want to be willing”.

There will come a time when you are invited to walk the road called “Willing Way”.  Not because you must, but because you are willing.  And this brings great pleasure to God.

“…not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be …” 1 Peter 5:1

A face book post from a childhood friend interrupts my morning—a beautiful tribute to her elderly faith-filled mom who passed into Glory two days’ before.  “Compassion brings us to a stop, and for a moment we rise above ourselves”, writes Mason Cooley.  I stop in a moment of compassion and allow the memories to rise, and a familiar image of a younger version, childhood-friend mom emerges from the outer edges of childhood past.  She smiles, and I remember.

How often do the faith-full parents of our childhood friends dot the horizons of our childhood memories?  They appear standing at a distance—silent guardians, watching and waiting; guideposts pointing the way; some already joined with the heavenly cloud, yet still encouraging us to run with patience and endurance the race of a faith-full life.

My thoughts take a leap to our own children’s childhood friends—those boys and girls who we got to love and serve in the Spring-season of their young lives.  Some were broken; all were hurting in one way or another (aren’t we all?).  And for a brief period of time, God graced us to share in their lives as faith-full guardians—watching and waiting amidst agonizing moments and gut-wrenching prayer.

I begin to rise above myself … Could I possibly be a dot on the memory-horizon of our adult children’s childhood friends?  Is it possible that even now, more than a decade later, I linger as a childhood memory—a guidepost helping to lead, to direct, to encourage?  If true, then all of the pain, the heartache, the sleepless nights and gut-wrenching prayer can finally make sense.

In the rising, new perspective comes.  Yes, we are road signs; we are guideposts.  We are the prophet Isaiah whispering a word from behind, memories from years past, “This is the way; walk in it”.  We are memory markers that dot the horizons of a multitude of childhood memories —even as the memory of my childhood friend’s mom marks me.

This morning, compassion brings me to a stop and I rise above myself and say, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you…” (Philippians 1:3).

Jacob was terrified to meet his brother, Esau.  He wrestled all night with “a man”.  At daybreak Jacob calls the place Peniel–meaning God’s face”, because he saw God face-to-face and lived.

The next morning Jacob limps out to meet the brother he feared.  He looks into Esau’s face and says, “To see your face is like seeing the face of God”.

Sometimes God hides Himself in our enemies.  Sometimes He hides Himself in those who are just plain annoying.  Keep wrestling through until the blessing comes–when you can see God’s face in the face of your brother.

“… Your face, Lord, I will seek.” Psalm 27:8

Husband on a mission—tightening the hinges on every door throughout our house.  I have no idea why.  Yet, after 30 plus years of marriage, I do know my husband.  He does nothing without good reason, and whether I understand or even agree, I listen with my spirit because God uses him, and I know it.

So I ask, “What’s going on?”

The question catches him off guard.  He stops.  He thinks for a moment.  Flash of Holy Spirit inspiration…, “Batten down the hatches”.

Yikes, not sure I like the sound of that.  “Batten down the hatches”—a nautical term that generally means “to prepare for stormy weather”.

Volcanic adrenaline-filled thoughts erupt in my mind.  Stormy weather coming.  Hang on tight; here we go.

But then he proceeds to tell me something he learned while sailing the New England coast as a boy.  The command to “batten down the hatches” is not just given at the approach of stormy weather but also when the captain decides to pick up speed and sail faster.  And, as a young boy, sailing fast is pure joy!

So, whether we are preparing for stormy weather, or preparing for a spiritual season of acceleration when God moves things to us and through us at an increasing rate of speed, or maybe even both, I’m not sure.  But of this I am sure.  God is good—period.  Therefore, something good is about to happen.  He is the good captain of our ship.  He is in control of our lives.  And we give thanks for it.

“I wonder why I didn’t see it there before…”.  Belle, from “Beauty and the Beast”

“You have a good eye”, husband tells me.  “A good eye for color.”  I like the sound of that.  A good eye–my heart smiles.  I feel artistic, creative, color-full.  Yet, I muse…what does it really mean–to have a good eye?

I read the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “There is no object so foul that intense light will not make beautiful.“

He says it, too, the beast/prince to Belle in the fairytale, “Try to find me and know me…no matter how I may be hidden from you.”

Is it possible to see this world with a “good eye“?  To see the prince in the beast–to see beauty in the ugly, in the wretched, in the unlovely?

“The eye is the lamp of the body.  If your eyes are healthy (good), your whole body will be full of light“, the words of His Book reveal.

Full of light.  To be light-full.  No hate, no disgust, no evil intent.  Soul eye clear of life’s distorting cataracts–those shifting memory-shadows that shade, darken, infect.

Centered only on the prevailing light of the good eye of the Father of Heavenly Lights…the bad eye becomes the good eye, seeing through the ugly to the hidden good and perfect gift within.  Eye-filling goodness that transforms.  In the moment, I am Belle in the fairytale looking at the beast/prince, “I wonder why I didn’t see it there before?”

“It is ingrained in us that we have to do exceptional things for God—but we do not.  We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people—and this is not learned in five minutes.”  Oswald Chambers

Holy…it means “set apart”…not so much from something, but unto something.  But what “something”?  How can we live the extraordinary in the ordinary?  How do we extract gold from the dirt of our everyday ordinary lives? 

Could the answer lie in “living in the moment”—that over used cliché that no time-driven ordinary person really knows how to do? 

Be holy for I AM holy.  I AM…His very Name reveals the present.  Holy, set apart unto I AM—the Present Moment—living life with holy awareness of the eternal destiny of the present moment.  Living in the “I AM”, daily extracting  the exceptional in the midst of the ordinary.

In the present moment, God uses those who are available to Him.  He chooses to frame Himself in the moment, and we get to enter into that sacred space with Him, our ordinary merging with His Holy. 

Extraordinary life, we get to live…”exceptional in the ordinary things of life, and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people“. 

“A nail is driven out by another nail; habit is overcome by habit.” Erasmus of Rotterdam, contemporary of Martin Luther.

Nail marks in His hands…”unless I put my finger where the nails were … I will not believe.”

A nail-habit of unbelief can only be driven out by the iron-sharper nail of perfect love.  It takes practice, believing does, to hit the nail on the head, but practice makes perfect, so they say.

So we practice hammering in nails of belief to pound out nails of unbelief; and in the doing, we learn the secret of Perfect Love:  the love of a carpenter’s son and Savior of the world; a love that drives out fear, the quintessence of all unbelief.

© Yuriy Soshnikov | Dreamstime Stock Photos

“She considers a field and buys it”—weeks go by, it won’t leave me.  Go deeper, He smiles.

Buys, in Hebrew, it literally means “to take”; considers, it connotes to devise, purpose, resolve and plot; used here, a good wife is clever to plan what is best for her family; she takes the field—seeing it through to harvest time.

Has God placed before you a field to consider?  A creative thought, an idea, a plan?  A field that can produce a harvest: a planted vineyard that yields fruit for your household, those placed at your table—those you get to love?

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.  Consider the field before you.  Consider heaven’s eternal purpose in your present season moment.  Then take it—it’s yours, clever you.  The fruit of your hands, that is.  And smile, knowing all is well.

As parents, our job is to shepherd our sons and daughters on the path of life, prodding them forward with biblical truth, yet giving them the grace … dare I say it … yes, to fail.

Instead of learning to manage sin in the context of a religious structure, our children learn to manage their freedom wherever they are—wherever they go.  It can get messy, and it can make us look bad, but this is the pathway that leads to God’s saving grace through faith in His son, Jesus Christ.

In the words of the Prophet, “… a little child shall lead them.”  The word “lead” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “panting induced by effort”.

It takes child-like faith to lead by love instead of managing behavior. Allow those you are influencing to watch you–a soul longing after God.   And when they do, they will be inspired to follow your lead–right into the arms of a loving Father, who is gracious and compassionate; slow to anger and rich in love.

Albert Einstein said, “Love is a better teacher than duty.”  I agree.  The love of God is the greatest of all life coaches.

CC0 Image: Hiker By Mountain Lake ID: 82955348 © Creativecommonsstockphotos | Dreamstime Stock Photos

When faced with the proverbial “fork in the road”, keep moving to keep faith from atrophying.  Even if later you realize the wrong path was chosen, better to back track than to be frozen in your tracks for fear of making a mistake.  Just keep moving, stay humble, and your faith will see you through.