Walking the path

(3-minute read)

I am constantly praying to ask the Lord to lead me and draw me closer to him. When he starts the conversation, I very often think that the words are produced by my mind and ignore them. Since I continue asking for the Lord’s help, he usually continues the conversation by sending events. I typically start out by blaming those on the devil or just bad luck. To answer my prayers, the Lord turns up the heat and the danger of ignoring him. I usually catch on when the things I highly value are lost or about to be lost. Just as I’m about to make the decision to escape the effects of the events, the Lord asks me a question. Although it comes in varying forms, the question is always the same.

There’s a book of the Bible that tells the story of a man’s conversation with God. It’s the Book of Job. The main characters are God and Job. There are minor secondary characters, such as the devil and Job’s friends. In the story, Job loses a lot because Job has a lot. God is much better at speaking than we are at listening; he knows how to get our attention. God doesn’t violate our free will and always gives Job and me a way to escape even him. He gives us someone to blame (the devil) and an alternate source of advice (friends). He then asked Job the same question he always asked me, “Do you trust me?” Job is a good man and tells the Lord he does even if he kills him.

I recently had one of these conversations with the Lord. Many years ago, I made an off-the-cuff decision because of a lack of time; I took the easy way out rather than the right one. That decision snowballed far beyond my imagination and caused damage; I have regretted it and felt guilt ever since. I wanted to make it right, but I didn’t know how. The damage was not repairable.

In ancient Israel, the courts could order justice by creating equality. If a man put out the eye of another man, the court could order that the aggressor’s eye be put out to have an equality of a missing eye in both men. Although from the court’s point of view, this is justice, the first innocent man is still without an eye; it’s not justice for him because the court can’t give him his eye back.

The conversation was not about going to heaven, as that was already settled by Jesus on the cross. I ask the Lord to make it right. I said, “Lord, tell me what to do. Don’t leave it up to me; I might take an easy way out. Plainly tell me what to do, and I will do it, even unto death.”

My doctor had sent me to a specialist to figure out a problem I was having, which he couldn’t explain. The specialist had run a large number of tests, and later that week, I had an appointment for him to give me the results. It was more than an hour’s drive to the specialist’s office, and as we were about to get in the car, my wife said she would drive because I seemed unusually nervous. We arrived half an hour before the appointment, and while sitting in the waiting room, the Lord spoke to me and said, “You can’t make it right any more than you can be the agent of your own forgiveness. Do you trust me to give justice in the same way I give forgiveness?” There was a pause, and then he asked again, “Do you trust me?” I said, “I do.” The heaviness lifted. I immediately knew the doctor would not give me a death notice.

I have now discovered that after all these years, I have the habit of feeling guilty and must remind myself at least once a day that the Lord has taken care of it and that all will receive justice. Even as the Lord corrects me, he makes me feel loved.