Fighting to Find Your Way

Fight the good fight to retain your reliance on Christ, lay hold on the life eternal, to which you were called, and did confess your profession of faith in the sight of many witnesses.  --1 Timothy 6:12 (self)

It's a simple matter to lose one's way.  I think in particular this morning of all those who were raised in The Church.  Parents took you to church rain or shine and you got out of it only through illness or a noisy house full of crazy visiting relatives (and even then maybe not.)  You sat through more interminable boring Sunday Schools and sermons than you care to remember.  Then the great day arrived that you stood up in front of the whole church at your Confirmation and said "I do" and "I will" in all the appropriate places to "join the church."  Then you went off.  It became easier to sleep in on Sunday.  Life got busy, then it got complicated... then you woke up one morning realizing, "I am lost."  In the noise of culture and independent thinking, in the blizzard of all forms of information media, in the happenstance of circumstance, in the blur of trying not to look retarded or backward, in the attempts to keep up with a goal or others it is easy to get lost.


In my fire training with the U.S. Forest Service we were taught to use a compass (an ancient device replaced by modern day GPS electronics.)  To use it you not only needed the compass and a map but you had to take note of the landmarks around you.  You could then use the compass on top of the map to orient it to the landmarks and find where you were.

When you get lost in your life it is time to stop and take a look at your guiding landmarks. The landmarks of faith have not changed, you have.  You may have to fight hard to put aside all the accumulation of opinions and ideas that you have gathered to yourself.  You may have to fight hard to find the quiet, the safety, the simplicity of the faith which birthed you into Christ's church.  Fight the good fight to put yourself in that sanctuary space the day you were baptized, the day you were confirmed and remember.  Forget your sophistication and what you think you know.  Note the simplicity of the landmark laid out there for you that day - a bare cross and an assured reliance attested to by the host of people gathered there for you and for Christ.  There lies the direction for you to aim your life again.

Prayer:
Help me O Lord, to take aim once again at embracing reliance on Christ.  In the name of the Father who created me, in the name of the Christ who died to save me, in the name of the Holy Spirit who guides me forever and ever.  Amen.