S6 E11: The Main Road + The Detours Are All Your Main Path
Hi friends. I’m not sure when you will be listening to this but at the time of the recording, it’s the middle of Holy Week. I understand that so many of you listening have different ways of celebrating this season. So many walks of life are represented and I know there are some listening that don’t even know why you listen because part of you doesn’t quite understand or agree with a lot of what I share on this podcast but here you are and for that I am grateful. And to you, I say keep listening…I believe there’s a reason you’re here.
Before we jump into today’s episode I wanted to let you know about a new art piece being released today. For those of you that have been around a while you’ve heard me talk about the message around Queen Esther and “for such a time as this” and if you’re a new listener you can listen to episode 96 to hear more about that. Obviously, this message means a lot to me and from the response, I got from you guys, it spoke to you as well. I designed a shirt last year that you can find in the shop, and this year I painted an abstract piece with the declaration found in Esther 4:14 that you are here for such a time as this! I’m offering professional giclee fine art prints from the original in a few different sizes so you can frame it and set it on your office desk or your dresser and be reminded that you are here for a reason. I hope you’ll love it and you can find it in the shop here.
My original thought was to have this episode release as we were heading into Holy Week and obviously that didn’t happen. The main reason it didn’t happen is that I have been trying to process so much of what this season represents and my heart + mind are seeing it with fresh eyes and I just haven’t been able to move from that space to share. And to be honest…I’m still not totally there…
Scripture tells us that the word is alive and I am experiencing that specifically in the context of all of the experiences that Holy Week represents. It still amazes me as an adult that the stories I have heard all my life continue to speak and reveal truth and bring life to my spirit and soul.
I love the scripture in John chapter 1 that says”
In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
So many layers, so much truth that never runs out in being revealed to us.
So in remembering + reflecting on Palm Sunday, Good Friday…
Which leads to the resurrection here’s where my thoughts have gone…
All of those events are so different in every way, every experience adding another layer to this beautiful story of redemption. Every step is needed and so very important. So even though they are All seemingly separate events, they are all seamlessly connected and needed in the story.
And I can’t get away from how much the truths found in this story reveal truth about the human journey we each are on. We all have this deep longing for this life more abundantly, what we were created for…scripture tells us that eternity has been set in the human heart. This longing we have for perfect peace and home and abundant life is there because it’s what we were designed and made for. We get so caught up in the realm that we can see with our physical eyes which is not the whole picture. We are eternal souls that are distracted by the noisiness of our present-day lives.
I think for most of us our focus seems to be such a narrow view of our life and being. It takes effort and intention on our part to focus our heart and mind on what is true over what we are feeling and seeing around us.
This is why it’s called the fight of faith!
When we choose to follow God and fulfill the purposes he has for our lives we tend to think that there is the one main path for us.
And that main path makes sense to us when things are going “good”…
The jobs are good, and our health is good. Our relationships are all thriving.
And when things veer off and aren’t going so well we think of that as a detour in our path and I’m still learning that it isn’t until we realize that it’s all the main path that we can experience life to the full even in the midst of….
It often bewilders me how I (we) as people of faith struggle with this and have beaten ourselves up as beaten up others with judgment. When most of the stories we were raised on from the Bible are examples of this very thing and yet we somehow separate the men and women in those stories from our humanity and God working within our stories.
I know many of you can relate to the Palm Sunday experience, the good times of hearing and experiencing the praises of others only for those days give way to Good Friday and then find that the same ones who shouted your praise might end up being the same people leading the charge against you.
These moments are the oh-so-important reminder that our faith and hope have to be securely placed in God and not in people. I am not saying that our relationships aren’t valuable and needed in our lives. People are amazing! But people are people. And that means they at some point are going to fail and disappoint you. God is God and he remains the same today and forever.
So when we experience what we consider a detour off the main path,
we long for and keep trying to get back to the path we were on, the one we knew and were comfortable with. A good and blessed path that we are expecting in the Christian walk. We question the path and why we are having to go this way…it’s uncomfortable and at worst painful. Even though our suffering can never begin to compare to Jesus! Even Jesus as God’s son asked the Father if it was possible for this cup to pass from him.
In his humanity, he didn’t want to experience the pain of the cross, and yet the pain was all part of the purpose.
Scripture shares with us that Jesus was in such agony that he literally was sweating drops of blood. In his humanity the fear was real and every cell in his body was resisting what was to come.
I’ve shared with my in-person people as well as here on the podcast that my resistance to pain is usually the greatest source of pain in my life.
It makes me think of getting spankings as a child. lol
Most of my almost daily spankings were administered by my mom but when we had totally exhausted her dealing with us we were passed off to the discipline of my Dad. And let’s just say my Father is more deliberate in well most every way. He’s the type of person in a conversation that just because you have just said something to him doesn’t feel pressure to respond haha.
So, where my mother’s spankings were honestly more painful they came quickly, and before I could really brace or process them. With my dad, it was the whole getting sent to your room to wait or the build-up of him getting prepared that was just too much for me. haha, so I chose to run …and scream and cry. And we have retold this scenario for years in our family when remembering my Dad through frustration in those moments saying, “why are you crying?! I haven’t even spanked you yet?!” haha
In the end, my resistance prolonged the process.
Every moment of my life and your life has brought us to this very moment. All the life, all the lessons. All the grace to grow takes us from glory to glory.
We can tend to lean toward the mistakes and take on the shame when that is so opposite of how our Creator sees us…He is seeing his masterpiece. Being molded more and more into his likeness. And the more we surrender to his hands the greater work he is allowed to continue which unveils his plans for our lives.
A few episodes ago I talked about how in working on art pieces a “mistake” will happen and what appears to have been a mistake momentarily makes me question everything and think about quitting or starting over …
And what’s interesting is that mistake is what ends up taking that piece in a different direction and is what ends up bringing the piece to life!
It’s all connected…
The good and the bad, the joy and the sorrow
The main roads, the detours
They are the main path.
Let’s pray…
Father, thank you for your never-ending love and faithfulness in our lives. Help us to follow your example of counting it all joy…
The good, the pain, all of it.
We are so grateful that we are not left alone in any of it.
Father, we ask that you open our hearts + minds to areas we are resisting your work in our lives and are waiting patiently for the surrender of our will and as Jesus declared, “not my will, but your will be done”
We are so thankful for your sacrifice for us Jesus. May we experience the power of the resurrection in this season like never before.
We love you and we are looking to you,
Always.
