The Unbusy Pastor, 16 October 2009

So, let's say you want to go see Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. You know, there's supposed to be a huge mega-volcano underneath most of Yellowstone that will wipe out humankind in a mega-eruption at some point, but I digress.

You run into a close friend there and ask her where Old Faithful is. She directs you to a path and tells you to keep walking until you find it. She's not sure of the distance, but you'll definitely know it when you see it.

It's a pretty broad path, nice and level and the scenery is beautiful. The trees sway in the wind, the birds chirp, squirrels jump from branch to branch...it's pretty great. As you go on the path narrows, goes up hill and winds along a cliff face. You've never been a big fan of heights. Your feet hurt a little bit. You realize that this may require some endurance, and you're not in the same shape you used to be. Man, the birds are a little irritating. Where is this thing anyway? It's a geyser. It should be pretty obvious. You heard people talking about it at the head of the trail, but you wonder if you missed a turn somewhere. Was it this windy when you started out?

Then you come to a deep, wide chasm spanned by a rope bridge. Your friend didn't tell you anything about this. This can't be right. There's no Old Faithful in sight. You turn around and head back to the head of the trail to find out where you went wrong.

Your friend is still there. You're pretty irritated at this point, so you tell her about your experience. You ask if she's sure Old Faithful is that way. She's sure. She asks you why you didn't keep going. She asks if you trust her. Your response is, "Of course I do."

But you didn't. When the time came to rely on her direction in the face of what seemed to be controverting evidence, you turned around. When the immediate sensual payoff was over, and all you to rely on was a friend who'd been where you're going, you turned around. When you were confronted with the necessity to continue in the face of notable inconvenience and difficulty, you turned around. When confronted full-face by the idea that you did not know where you were going and were not up to the task, which was nothing more than a description of what was true from the start, you gave up.

In other words, you made a profession of trust, but you did not engage in the activity of trusting. After all, we can only trust when we given an opportunity by lack of evidence (seemingly), by imposition of inconvenience or when confronted by our weaknesses; all else is happy coincidence. It takes no trust at all to head down a path where the results are certain from the outset. If you can see the tip of the geyser from the trail head you don't need your friend's directions. When you don't know where you're going or how to get there...that's when you need a friend who's been there, but you must act based on no more concrete assurance, no more convincing evidence than that.

In fact, there is no other evidence. We have the reality of God and his assurance that he loves us. That's all. All else is accretion, illusion and insecurity. There is no use asking God for what he has not. He can love us only with himself, because he has nothing else to give. If we do not love him with our wills, we can never love him at all.

Every suffering is an opportunity to love him with our will. Every blind corner is another chance to move beyond simple profession of faith, and to be faithful. The narrow, uphill path is only evidence that we've moved beyond the trail head, nothing more. It supposed to be that way. Every rope bridge is a time meet God with a thankful heart because he's made a way across the chasm.