Invitations

Less than a month ago I was focused on finishing school. One of our assignments was to think about the future and how we will implement our spiritual direction plans. I did that, but I also felt an urge to work on beautifying my garden and straightening the chaos in my closets—things that have not been tended since the fall of 2019 when I began school. 

Flowers in Banff, Canada

I especially want to work on landscaping, but in the South that’s a job for early morning. Early morning conflicts with the patterns I’ve developed—rising, grabbing coffee, and going to my quiet space to spend time with God and to write. I am afraid to drop my habit or change daily patterns. I’m afraid I’ll fall off the edge into “project absorption.” Still, the garden is drawing me, but I am resisting the change. As I processed this inner conflict with my spiritual director, I began to see some things. 

First, the garden feels like an invitation from God. Any invitation from God is filled with promise—it’s like a father who comes in and says, put on some comfortable clothes, I’m going to take you someplace special, and it’s a surprise. God loves me too much to let me create distance between us. If anything, he is drawing me to himself. I’ve learned to discern the movements of my heart well enough to know when I’m missing significant connection with God; the Holy Spirit will help me. 

Second, as I shared, I imagined two strong arms opened, shoulder-length apart, keeping me in the middle of that loose embrace. His rod and staff, they comfort me. There is safety with God and his invitations. I don’t need to be fearful, but I can be wary of my own sin. I realize how legalistic I can become with my practices, and he is inviting me to just be with him—in my garden, as I clean my closets, as I play with grandchildren or go on a date with my husband. That is Christian liberty.

The third thing I saw was that the narrow way is often too narrow and of my doing. I have created how-tos, oughts and shoulds that bind me. To be sure, on the outside, before you’ve entered into a walk with Christ, the entrance is narrower than the broad super highway of the world’s ideas and systems, and inside, there are always measured choices that are different from the world, the flesh, and Evil. But, when you are on the inside of the “narrow way,” experiencing companionship with God, learning from him with joy, and becoming aware of your impossible position as a child of God, the Way becomes wide. It’s filled with flower-strewn rolling hills, mountains, shimmering lakes and curving rivers. On the inside there is beauty, even when Providence doesn’t seem to befriend you. You are always being led, held, and enclosed by a good and beautiful God. And within that way, God is constantly inviting us up and into deeper and wider knowledge and joy. The narrow way isn’t narrow at all. 

My director said something that is 100% true of me as well, “Because of what I have experienced and learned, I will never go back to what I knew before.” Yes! Yes, and yes! I want no other way but him and to experience him in my everyday life. And he has put that grace in me, and will keep me, and he will not let me get lost—wherever I may be.