"I am the way, the truth, and the life", Jesus said. Truth and life may supply the motives for following, yet in the end a relationship with God, like any relationship, boils down to the "way", the daily process of inviting God into the details of my existence. Soren Kierkegaard likened some Christians to schoolboys who want to look up solutions to the math problems in the back of the book. Only by doing the math, step by step, can you learn the math. Or in John Bunyan's analogy, only by pursuing the way, progressing through its joys, hardships, and apparent detours, can the pilgrim arrive at the destination.
I have an unmarried friend who prays earnestly for God to lessen or even remove his sexual drive. It causes him constant temptation, he says. Pornography distracts him, plunges him into a failure spiral, and ruins his devotional life. As gently as I can, I tell him that I doubt God will answer his prayer as he wants, by recalibrating his testosterone level. More likely, he will learn fidelity the way anyone learns it, relying on discipline, community, and constant pleas of dependence.
For whatever reason, God has let this broken world endure in its fallen state for a very long time. For those of us who live in that broken world, God seems to value character more than comfort, often using the very elements that cause us most discomfort as his tools in fashioning that character. A story is being written, with an ending only faintly glimpsed by us. We face the choice of trusting the Author along the way or striking out alone. Always, we have the choice.
In my own spiritual life, I am trying to remain open to new realities, not blaming God when my expectations go unmet but trusting him to lead me through failures toward renewal and growth. I am also seeking a trust that "the Father knows best" in how this world is run. Reflecting on Old Testament times, I see that the more overt way in which I may want God to act does not achieve the results I might expect. And when God sent his own Son - sinless, non-coercive, full of grace and healing - we killed him. God himself allows what he does not prefer, in order to achieve some greater goal.
From "Reaching for the Invisible God" by Philip Yancy
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