First let me clarify.
I am not saying that there are ONLY three ways to be a Christian. I am not saying that one of these paths is better than the others. It may be that each of us is suited to one of these paths more than the others. These 3 paths are the paths that I have seen other Christians follow. I have spent time on each of them………possibly only a minute or two…….but enough time to sense how they feel. I am beginning to wonder if there are other paths that I do not know……yet. But, that is a topic for another day. I suspect that we may learn from the path that we are on and then shift to another path. I also suspect that we may find that the path that we are on is not satisfying us…….and reject Christianity altogether. If you have rejected Christianity because the path that you were following was not satisfying, perhaps you were not on the path that you were created for. If your walk just feels stale and lifeless, perhaps you need to seek another more suitable path.
So……what do these paths look like?
The path of forms:
This is the Christianity of rites. We go to church on Sunday. We get baptized. We tithe. We sing the songs. We try to follow the rules. Then we walk out of church at noon and re-enter the world of secular humanism………which us pretty much where we live. This path isn’t too demanding. Fact is, it’s pretty easy to keep God at arms length……where he can’t interfere with us.
The path of the intellect:
We read the Bible over and over. We pore over every word. We go to Bible studies. We dig into the rules to learn how to live. We parse out the prophesies to see what is ahead. We tell others when they are failing to fulfill the teachings of God and of Jesus. We strive to approach God on an intellectual basis. We try to understand God and to prove him to non-believers…….with logic. We can hold our own in an argument with a secular humanist. We can lead others to Jesus. We can strengthen other Christians. We can minister to others. This is noble…….but it is heavy lifting. And it is easy to become self-righteous.
The path of love:
There are the Christians who have confused me for most of my life. These are the Christians who leave a great job…..a successful career. They get on a plane, fly halfway around the world, settle into a place with dirt floors, a place with little or no health care, where their baby’s diaper…..if they have one……is full of worms, where the government is openly hostile to their faith, and sometimes they give up their freedom or even their lives. These Christians amazed and confused me. For a period in my life I turned away from Christianity out of fear that this might be my calling…….the fear that God would say to me…..”Byron, drop what you are doing, sell your stuff, go to Africa, and wait for my instructions”. What, I asked myself, were these Christians thinking? Frankly, there have been times when this path of Christianity has terrified me. There have been times when spending eternity worshipping God……..just didn’t seem like any fun at all. Worst of all…….the people on this path often seemed just a little wierd.
So……I return to the question, “What are they thinking?”
And today, during my morning meditation, for about a minute, I found myself on their path. Don’t get the wrong idea, I fell off pretty quickly. But I was there long enough to sense the wonder of it. And I think that this is where I want to go…….possibly where I was meant to be. This third path is a path defined by love…..for the man……Jesus. Nail this down…..and all of the rules…….all of the prophesies……suddenly make sense. This third path stops being weird and instantly becomes……..comfortable. I’m not sure that I am up to it…….but I will try to spend more time on the path of love.
I’ll keep you posted.
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Jesus, John 14:21, ESV