The Road We Never Intended to Take

A few summers ago my three sons and I undertook the ultimate road trip: a 9,300-mile venture from Zionsville to Alaska and back. Every stage of our trip went according to plan until we reached the Yukon Territory on our way home. There were wildfires in the area – more than one thousand of them, we later learned.

We pulled into the town of Watson Lake and noticed that a barricade had been stretched across the Alaska Highway. It was Monday afternoon. “We’ve had to close the road for a while because of the fires,” a highway worker told us. “When do you think it might reopen?” I asked, still hoping to arrive at our scheduled stop for the evening. “Oh…it should reopen by Thursday,” he said.

Even though the thought of spending 72 hours in a small village in the Yukon was fascinating in a certain horror movie kind of way, we decided to take our chances by backtracking to the only other road in that part of North America. It was a bad road. We saw wildfires burning right along its shoulder. Small reminders of civilization appeared at about fifty-mile intervals. Our cell phones were useless. Nevertheless things were going remarkably well – until we blew a tire on the rough surface.

There in the middle of the evergreen wilderness we met what can only be described as the Army Rangers of the mosquito world. While my son Mark changed the tire – I made sure to stand back and give him plenty of room – the mosquitoes descended on us as if were a long-awaited buffet. Impervious to bug spray, they went down our socks. They ventured behind my glasses. We drove off knowing we were now one more blowout away from being stranded without communication in the presence of mosquitoes that were imagining how they might use us as a future illustration.

To be honest, we were scared. We drove almost 24 hours straight, stopping only for gas, staying up most of the night inventing games to entertain whoever happened to be driving. Today, however, without hesitation, all four of us would say that that turned out to be the best part of the trip. We would concur with G.K. Chesterton, who said that an adventure is just an inconvenience misunderstood, and an inconvenience is just an adventure misunderstood. So often it is the unplanned stretch of road that generates the most lasting impressions and teaches the most important lessons.

Are you on such a road today? Do you feel as if you are walking through a wilderness? You never planned on having cancer; or losing your job after age 50; or having someone you love tell you that they don’t love you anymore. What assurances do we have? Only this one: We never go down such roads alone. God is always present with those who cry out for his love and his gift of hope.

To be fair, all wildernesses are not created equal. Sometimes we enter personal wastelands because we have stumbled through our own foolishness. Sometimes we suffer because of the actions of others. Jesus journeyed to the desert so his loyalty to God could be tested to the fullest degree. And we cannot overlook the reality that wasteland experiences are sometimes an outright punishment. The first year or so of Israel’s time in the Sinai was a God-designed spiritual classroom. But the next 38 years of wilderness wandering represented a judgment for failing to trust God.

For all its value as an opportunity for growth, however, the spiritual desert is not a place for weekend camping trips. Our goal must be to walk through it. Where is our hope that such a thing is possible? We find this refrain in Psalm 42:

• Why are you downcast, O my soul?
  Why so disturbed within me?
  Put your hope in God
  For I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

People of faith frequently conclude that the arid seasons of life turn out to be some of the best years of life. God teaches magnificently in the wasteland. It was in the wilderness that David, Elijah, and Moses had to choose between bitterness and trust. Would they become cynical about God’s promises, or renew their hope that God alone was faithful?

As we learn to keep company with God, we learn to see reality differently. Perhaps we began our spiritual journey years ago by thinking, “I want God to help me.” Increasingly we found ourselves counting on God’s positive response to our yearnings for signs of his favor: “I want God to bless me.” We may even have collected books and sermons and retreats to reinforce the goodness and rightness of that desire.

But then came a time in the wilderness. Gradually another possibility – raw and difficult – began to emerge. We began to imagine crying out, “I want God to be God. I want God not for what he will do to make me happy, but because walking with God is itself the greatest human happiness.” Keeping company with God in a barren time of life is a graduate education in learning not to cling to God’s blessings, but to cling to God alone. It may not be the road we ever intended to take, but it’s the pathway to some of life’s deepest happiness.

Fantasy & Reality

Americans love fantasy. We daydream about spectacular vacations. We wonder what we would do if we were holding the winning Lotto ticket. We transport our children to Disney World, where Cinderella’s castle dominates the landscape. Millions of us pretend to be NFL owners and draft our own fantasy football teams. Entire industries have been created to do little more than indulge our occasional escapes from reality.

But fantasy can also be relationally catastrophic. Gifted marketers are committed to luring us into the gray area of wondering if we aren’t missing out on life, simply because of the apparent tragedy of being stuck with the wrong life partner.

“Don’t you want to know who’s looking for you right now?” So beckons the Internet ad. Click on this space and you can be connected with a new best friend or a fantasy lover. What sells new products and experiences in our culture? The answer is dissatisfaction. Disappointment with my current job, or hairstyle, or car, or spouse, or religion is reason enough to go prowling for alternatives.

Hollywood has reinforced the notion that living out fantasy relationships is, well, fantastic. Media observers report that more than nine out of ten sexual encounters as portrayed in American cinema and television are between unmarried partners. Somebody else out there is always having the great sex. In the hopes of sharing that fantasy, some of us ultimately cross the line.

And then we get a taste of reality.

Senator John Edwards has become a wrenching object lesson in the cost of relational boundary-crossing. So have countless other politicians, entertainers, sports stars, business people, and religious leaders, including the pastor who helped introduce me to Christ. Fantasy can look so fantastic. But sooner or later it morphs into reality.

Author John Ortberg recalls hearing some compelling advice from a speaker: “Sit down and make a list of all the things that will happen to you if you mishandle your sexuality.” Ortberg did that. He wrote, “If I step away from God’s intentions in this area of life, I will stand to lose my marriage; the trust of my children; my capacity for experiencing intimacy; and my ability to worship. I will undoubtedly end up facing guilt and fear; the temptation to become a hidden person; loss of character; crushing damage to my reputation and ministry; weakness the next time I feel temptation; and the deep sadness that I would be passing on a legacy that would compromise my children’s ability to trust God.”

Ortberg keeps that paragraph close at hand. He reviews it regularly. It has become a safeguard in a culture that thumbs its nose at the ideal of personal purity.

All of this invites an important question: Why is relational fidelity such an ongoing struggle for virtually every generation?

I heard a few years back that the space shuttle burns something like 96% of its fuel in the first few minutes after launch. That massive burst of energy is required for the shuttle to escape the Earth’s powerful gravitational pull. The little fuel that remains is all that is necessary for orbital maneuvers. In the same way, God seems to have hardwired human love relationships with a “blast-off” phase. The forces of attraction that we initially feel, powered by hormonal surges, can feel like a real rocket ride. A good many songs are devoted to the excitement of the relational launching pad – although it must be admitted that at least half of the Country-Western songs are about coming back to Earth with a thud.

When it comes to relationships, Americans are addicted to rocket rides. Why not pursue serial launches? If you can’t blast me off (at least, the way you always used to) I’ll go and find somebody who can.

There is a world of evidence, however, that the “orbital” phase of a love relationship – the so-called straight life toward which every friendship and marriage is ultimately pointed – is the goal that God always intended for men and women. It is the context in which God’s gifts of kindness, love, and grace are best given and received. The absence of that launching pad “hot burn” is hardly a sign that a relationship has fizzled; rather, in the setting of healthy commitment, it is more likely an evidence of growing maturity – and the promise of deeper joys to come.

King David, who more than any other Old Testament character embodied the hopes and yearnings of ancient Israel, learned from experience the difference between fantasy and reality. His illicit relationship with Bathsheba nearly brought down his reign. But something crucial happened in David’s heart: He found his way back to God. His personal spiritual recollections of that event are recorded in Psalm 51:

“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me… Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” The good news is that no matter what our experiences have been, God will hear us when we call. And that is the reality on which we can ultimately count.