Finding my Way

This is a photo of one of the paths between the seaside villages of Cinque Terre. It is narrow, rocky, and its destination obscured. In fact, the path leads away from the Mediterranean (which would be to one’s left) and further into the mountain – away from where I was headed.

So often, this is what my life’s journey feels like—how about you?

The journey by footpath through Cinque Terre is unpredictable. The view is spectacular; but when the road is so precarious, I tend to see just what is immediately around me: the jutting rocks, my footing, the narrowness of the ledge, the obstacles. I lean forward, my heart beating rapidly in my ears, straining to catch the sounds of other travelers. I do not want to be completely alone in my journey.

The red paint that marks the path is rather a blight to the natural terrain, but there is some reassurance in knowing that I am on the right path. This is the way I am supposed to be going. I haven’t wandered off by mistake.

Other travelers do appear. Some with sweaty, but smiling faces. We exchange greetings with German tourists in the language of our shared journey: “Buon giorno!”

A beautiful city waits at the end of my path. In Cinque Terre, it is Vernazza, pictured below at night and at dawn.



Somewhere at the end of my spiritual journey, a beautiful city waits for me as well. It is a city of light, flowing with a river of pure life. It sparkles like a precious gem. The city will bring healing to the nations, and no evil will enter there (Revelation chapters 21 and 22).

The path to get there is narrow, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7: 13-14). Jesus said He was “the way” (John 14:16). His Word will be a “light to my path” and a lamp for my feet” (Psalm119:105).

With my heart, I see the city and trust the path I am on to get there. With my heart, I hope, and love, and believe.

And that… is living spiritually in the everyday.

Beautiful Feet

“How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news”(Romans 10:15)!

Tears welled up in my eyes Sunday morning and the lump in my throat thickened as I watched eleven missionary families march into our church sanctuary bearing the flag of their mission country during slides of their field work.

I was overwhelmed with the beauty of their sacrifice, with the beauty of their humble countenance, and with the beauty of the spirit in them that for the “joy set before them,” they have endured so many things to bring the hope and freedom of the gospel to the least among people around the world.

This is the first Missions Conference (as a missionary participant) for my friend Marge who a year ago this time was diagnosed (twice), then healed of throat cancer. Now a year later, she and her family have been called to Costa Rica, accepted by a mission board, and are raising support for ministry to homeless and destitute Nicaraguan refugees – the least among the people of Costa Rica.

How beautiful her heart, with all its passion and all its pain, is to me. How beautiful her love for her family and her love for those unloved people.

At the Ladies Missionary Luncheon today, I met some of the dear women who labor in difficult locations across the globe to bring food, education, and the love of Jesus to tribes in third world countries or Eurasian countries impoverished by years of communist rule.

For an ice-breaker, I asked them to share the most unusual food item they had ever eaten (I was the emcee for the luncheon). Wasp larvae, eels, sheep heads, intestines of various animals, a fish stomach, fried termites and rats were among those found on the “menus.”

For many the challenge of finding and storing uncontaminated edible food is a daily one. For others, the challenge was keeping up with the laundry when water and power are not always available, even if they did own a small clothes washer (dryers are a luxury).

I learned that ironing your clothes is not only a matter of neatness, but also a matter of health—it reduces the number of invisible bugs that can make their home in your underwear!

I am reflecting on so many things as I write this: gratitude for what I have, awe for these beautiful ladies, and a new wonder about living spiritually in the everyday.

Beauty: Essential to Spirituality

Beauty as an essential ingredient to living spiritually? I had not considered beauty as a part of developing my spirit until lately as I re-read both Eldredge’s book Captivating and Frances Mayes’ book Bella Tuscany. Beauty, I might have considered, a physical and external distraction to my walk with God, a vain pursuit that revealed a self-centered preoccupation with the temporal and earthly. Certainly not eternal. Beauty is, after all, only skin deep, right?

Still, I could not fully explain the impact upon my inner person that the grand majesty of the Grand Teton mountains or the quiet cathedral-like beauty of the Muir redwoods has. A rural Tuscan countryside or the blue waters of Cozumel. The sun setting on the Gulf.

Now I am beginning to see natural beauty (pristine, pure, and glorious) as an expression of God’s beautiful person. And our attempts to create beauty in this world as an expression of our design: an image-bearer of our Creator.

In contrast, that which has no light or no life has no beauty. Decay, destruction, death; carnage, corruption, catastrophe— results of the fall and the curse, these hold no beauty for us, for they were not part of creation as God intended and purposed. And not part of His plan for eternity.

Have you read the final chapters of Revelations? The ones that describe the city of God, the crystal river, the jeweled foundations, the eternal light and joy? Everything there is beautiful because it is a true expression of God’s love and holiness.

Everything here that is truly beautiful, shining out from this sin-darkened world, is a reminder of who God is and what is in store in His eternal kingdom. Beauty ties the believer, not to the temporal and earthly, but to the spiritual for it stirs a longing for what is good and pure and lasting.

Beauty here is fleeting. In a moment, the sunset fades. The redwoods get ravaged by fire. The view of the Tetons gets obscured by storm clouds. The azure liquid in Cozumel grays when the sun removes its gaze.

The beauty that is in Christ and that is experienced in a relationship with Him is a treasure to be sought every day and to be fully realized in the eternal. Let the beauty that is around you draw you to the One who is truly beautiful and good. And let your life be a beautiful expression of who He is in and through you.

Spiritual living in the everyday dramas – my quest

One of my ongoing pursuits this past year has been a deeper understanding of how to live spiritually as a Christian in a physical world. I do not want to compartmentalize my spirituality into a daily or weekly ritual. But my current question is (see the entry Taking the Lead-Jazzy's story-Oct.1'06) what is my part in this journey? How can I be more spiritual as I live in the physical?

How much of being spiritual is the part when I am still, reflective, devotional, and meditating on God’s Word in a private, personal worship time? And what does that look like when a car ahead of me in carpool straddles the two carpool lanes and clogs up the traffic flow!?! Or when my children all take turns getting a virus, just as my copay increases and my part-time income decreases!

While I can see my ability to handle these (minor) challenges with grace and patience grow as I devote myself to seeking a godly, eternal perspective on life, the disparity between the spiritual depths I reach when I am engaged in a heart-to-heart with my Maker and the pettiness at which I can get caught up in any given day is disturbing to me. It is this awareness of my inner spiritual poverty, however, that keeps me on this quest.

This week, a conversation about the movie trilogy Lord of the Rings prompted an insight about this very issue, at least at a symbolic level. In this story by Tolkien, the heroes are engaged in a battle of good versus evil that will determine the fate of Middle Earth. The battle is both spiritual and physical.

Spiritually, the heroes must overcome their own vulnerability to evil, their mistrust of team members (the fellowship), the pain of betrayal, fear of failure, and the temptation to despair in the light of overwhelming obstacles. Physically, they must endure many forms of suffering, and they will all very literally engage in more than one hand-to-hand combat, to-the-death fight. Blood will be spilt, and no one will be spared bodily harm. Not even the main hero, Frodo.

Evil, in the form of Orcs, goblins, and Uruk-hai, is ruthlessly brutal and singularly focused on the annihilation of all forms of life: trees, humans, hobbits, elves. The Uruk-hai, especially, are everything I might imagine a demonic force to look like in a physical form. Truly the stuff of nightmares! I think if we could see our spiritual enemy for who he really is- how utterly bent on our destruction and how abominably wicked he and his demonic horde are—it would look a lot like how evil is portrayed in this trilogy.

Although the battles are fought with real human (and elf and dwarf) effort, even to the death, the victories that are won are supernatural—connected to the faith and hope and love of the heroes in the face of staggering odds.

Through this analogy, I perceive another ray of light in my journey to learn the balance between my human effort and God’s amazing power and sovereignty to work in me:

On this earth, my life here plays out in the physical realm of circumstances, but the battles are lost or won in my heart where I choose either faith or fear, love or anger, rest or stress, hope or despair. These choices are my part in the journey. The outcomes of the external conflicts are His.

…and the quest continues…