Category Archives: Submitting to God

Synchronized Walking

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I live in a quiet neighborhood with narrow lanes running between the houses, no curbs, no sidewalks. The streets are the sidewalks, and people use them for long walks, bike rides, exercise jogs, or (like Jack and I), slow strolls.

The other day I saw a couple power-walking up a steep road toward the lake, the man over six feet tall and the lady under five feet. Somehow, though, they were stepping together in perfect synchrony. After they walked around Jack and I at a fast clip, I studied their movement, trying to figure out how the two of them could possibly have the same length of stride with such different length of legs.

Though their walking looked natural for both of them, the only possible answer was that the man had shortened his steps and the lady had lengthened hers till they met somewhere in the middle. Amazing.

Walking

This willingness to change the way they originally walked on their own probably didn’t come without effort. The process must have taken determination from both of them. But the end-result was perfect-pacing that let them walk together as if they were partnered in a smooth dance.

What a great example of how God wants us to pair up with him. First he needs to know we want to get in step with him, to walk in his way. Then he’s hoping we’ll follow up with the work it takes for us to make the necessary changes. (If I’m typical, this can take years.)

As we’re working on that, amazingly God begins to walk so close to our steps that it seems he’s the one making all the adjustments. But what’s really happening is that our submission to his pacing-plans has caused him to facilitate changes in our stride that we never thought we could manage.

Just as it’s a wonder how the tall man and the short lady make synchronized walking work so well, it’s mysterious how God improves our ability to walk in sync with him. We aren’t making it happen; he is, in response to our desire for it.

As for my neighbors, if I had stopped them and asked how hard it had been for each of them to adapt their steps to the other, they probably would have looked at me quizzically and said, “Oh, we just walk together like that naturally.”

Walking shoesMy hope is that one distant day I’ll be walking in step with the Lord so naturally that I won’t even remember what it was like to walk in my own way.

“My feet have closely followed his steps…” (Job 23:11)

Waaa! Waaa! Waaa!

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Last week I went shopping in search of a new pair of black slacks. I mentally prepared myself for the long process and the possibility of failure, being the halfhearted shopper I am. Starting at the sale racks, I took 6 pairs into the dressing room, and against all odds, the very first one fit perfectly. I never tried on the rest.

The following day, heading for groceries at a Meijer super-store, I felt like a million in my new slacks. But as I entered the multi-panel, slide-away glass doors, shrill alarms went off all over the place. Waaa! Waaa! Waaa!

Meijer'sThe store greeter waved me in with a smile. “Happens all the time,” she said, as I chose a cart. “It’s our malfunctioning sensors.” But I wasn’t so sure.

As I pushed my grocery cart up and down the aisles I began to think about getting out of the store. If the alarm sounded again, Meijer personnel wouldn’t be as inclined to wave me out with a cart full of merchandise.

That episode was a valuable picture of sin: easy to get into and difficult to get out of. As many pastors say, “Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.”

Why is it so hard to be conscious of this when we’re on the way in? The only answer is that temptation is tantalizing. The positive here-and-now blinds us to the negative here-after. We say: “just this once,” or “everybody’s doing it,” or “I’ll leave it behind when I’m older” or “I won’t get hooked.”

God is well aware of our talent for rationalizing our way right into trouble. That’s why he established his own version of sensomatic barcode labels within each person. It’s called a conscience, and as we’re heading into sin, the alarm bells sound. Depending on age, experience, and desire, those “waaa’s” might be dim, deafening, or somewhere in between.

I hope my conscience-warnings stay on the loud side, so there’s a better chance I’ll heed them. As for the very loud alarms at Meijer, on my way out, the “waaa’s” sounded again, which is when I knew there had to be something wrong with my new pants. I figured this time I was headed for the back room and wondered if they’d let me refrigerate my milk while I was in custody.

Security tagStanding in front of a female employee, I reached down my pant leg to feel for a magnetic strip while telling her I’d just bought those slacks. When I invited her to reach in, too, she stepped back and said, “That’s ok. You’re free to go.”

 

And that’s what God says, too. If we stray into sin and long to get out, he’s always willing to help set us free.

“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” (Psalm 103:8)

A-maze-ing

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When I was a kid, one of summertime’s greatest pleasures was visiting an amusement park. Although no one had yet heard of Six Flags, the Chicago area had Riverview, and southwest Michigan had Silver Beach. We took advantage of both places as often as our parents would let us. It helped that even the best rides cost only a quarter, and on five-cent day, they were all a nickel.

ParachutesThough we loved the roller coasters best, both parks offered all kinds of other excitement. One had a free-fall ride called the Parachutes with nothing more than a flat swing-seat and a limp chain to keep us from tumbling out. The other had a Fun House with a slide several stories high.

We also got a kick out of sitting on a flat disk the size of a living room that spun so fast not one rider could fight centrifugal force enough to stay on. Kids flew off at high speed onto carpet that gave them lots of pink rug burns — battle wounds, we’d say.

Something else both places offered was a Maze. Made with a dazzling array of sheeted glass and mirror, they fooled even the cautious. I learned by experience that over-confidence in a maze was a sure-fire way to go home with a goose-egg on your forehead.

Mirror MazeThese mazes were put together with their panels set at 45-degree angles, confusing us further by our own reflections, not just in front of us but in back, on the side, and “way over there.” It’s the perfect definition of “meeting yourself com- ing and going.” But we paid to get lost in them again and again.

Once in a while life itself seems like a maze, especially when it comes to making important decisions. The process can be much like finding our way through an amusement park maze: part frustration, part fascination. Just when we’re sure we see the way out, we slam into a dead-end…. sometimes with consequences far more damaging than goose-eggs.

So how are we to make wise choices?

By questioning God. But when we ask him, “Is it this or that?” we should be prepared to hear, “The other.”

Maze.God doesn’t do things conventionally, because he’s got ideas that would knock our socks off if he showed us all at once. So when we ask for decision-help, his guidance may not make immediate sense. That’s because he’s already way down the road in front of us, like a friend in a mirrored maze who we see but have no idea how to get to.

The important thing is that God isn’t out to deceive us the way maze designers are. His desire is just the opposite of theirs, not to trap us but to move us in an orderly way toward the good conclusion he has in mind. And as we trust his wisdom over our own, he’ll even get us there without any goose-eggs.

“Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.” (Psalm 143:8)