Red and White Antennae Things…

I often go to the library at Webster University to do my studying and preparing for youth lessons and sermons. Webster's library now holds Eden Theological Seminary's collection. The seminary, and now the university, has been kind enough to give me a library card so I have access to both school's books.

One of the places I like to spend my time is the fourth floor in a collection of chairs which over look part of the campus. The other day, as I was working on the sermon that I will preach this week, I noticed a group of blind students being led down the sidewalk that approaches the library building. The group was being led by two students who obviously possessed the ability to see.  The rest of the group trailed behind with their red and white walking sticks swinging back and forth feeling the way like the antennae of ants.

The sidewalk they were progressing down was narrow. It was easy to see that these visually impaired individuals were easily navigating the path before them. Stray too far to the left and they would run into a curb protecting the flower beds. Stray too far to the right and they would wander off into grass – obviously not the path. The path, however, did not stay narrow. As they continued on the normal width sidewalk the path began to fan out into a larger area with multiple points of departure. All of it was concrete. There were no obstacles which might pose a problem. The way was no longer clear.

I watch as one girl, who had been using the curb as a reference point, continued to use the curb to guide her way. As the curb curved away from the direction of the larger group, she followed it. Soon she was a good distance away from her friends and about to ascend some stairs. Just then, one of the student guides realized that she was going the wrong way and directed her back to the group.

Perhaps this imagery provides a good analogy to our life and faith journey. To a large extent we are like these blind students. We are unable to see very well where the path of life or faith will take us. We make decisions about what to do, where to go and how to act based on a limited set of information. This isn't hard when the boundaries of the path are clearly marked out. But what happens when the narrow path dumps us out into a giant intersection? What happens when our red and white walking stick antennae thing fails to give us any information other than that our path is a hard prepared surface? The path is there. It's smooth and straight and doesn't contain anything that will cause us to stumble. But how do we know the right direction?

At this point the common answer is to read the bible and pray; seek Godly counsel from mature Christians. These are all good things, things I have suggested to people and have used myself. But it has been my experience that sometimes those things don't help either. The path of life seems more often to be wide, with a multiplicity of choices and directions. Some of those choices and directions are better than others, but at the end of the day they are along the paved path.

I'm not facing any major life choices at the moment. I know, however, that as long as I trust the red and white antennae thing (the Holy Spirit?) that God has given me to keep me on the paved path, that regardless of which exact path I choose God will be with me and find a way to use me.

What about you? What do you do when the path becomes wide and the way is difficult to discern?