A Prayer for the Road

(Previously published here.)

The road lies ahead of me. If I squint, I can just make out the broken yellow lines and a discarded flip flop alone at the center of an intersection. Fog hangs low obscuring what else might await.

I know that my road stretches ahead in unrelenting certainty, however far a life extends. It widens, narrows, bends and falls according to a design I cannot see. Some days it is easy, a path of light and heat and satisfaction. Green meeting blue and spilling over into song.

Some days I can hardly press forward, so crowded I am--by sin and sadness and the brokenness of Your beautiful world. I am mired by the weight of circumstances I cannot change.

The road is desolate in some places, dusty, barren and parched. The horizon disappears, and I finally begin again to thirst.

This road, my road, lies ahead of me, and I even know where it ends. And some days I want to get to the end so bad it hurts. I want to run past the pain I will see and experience, turn a blind eye to all those who might misunderstand me, flee even from the joy, for it is sure to remind me that I am sick and weak and wrong.

God, move me, pull me, entice me with  Your glory. Help me walk down a path that will not be tread by sight. You formed me for this road. It is for Your grace and Your kingdom. It is for the brokenness and the joy, the colorless days, the abandoned flip flops and love. For these I am made, for my good and Your glory.

When I close my eyes, the road transforms, and I can see You waiting at the end. I am clothed in white, bought with a  price. You are the bridegroom, I am Your bride.

I walk down the aisle, and I am changed. You teach me who You are, who I am. You splinter away my self-reliance and show me my need of your grace. One day, You will finish the work You started, and I will stand before you blameless, having learned all my lessons, seeing things as they really are. Seeing You. This hope keeps my feet on the path, and I walk.

I will take a step, then another. And when I don't think I can go on, You will pull me forward, the Author and Finisher of my faith.

You are at the end, and so I come. Imperfectly and beautifully, a journey in grace.