Our faith journey isn’t a tightrope; it’s a river.
For too long my faith walk had me thinking of myself as a high-wire aerialist. One misstep and I’d plunge into the chasm that would lead to my destruction. An ill-timed expletive, a blunt push for a promotion at work or even laughing at a Bart Simpson taunt were among what I thought would derail me from the tightrope of faith I had placed myself upon.
I put other Christians on that same high-wire, often evaluating them by how well they walked that rigid tightrope. After all, as fellow believers we were all on the same narrow path, right? In fact, didn’t Jesus say “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction . . . (Matt. 7:13)?
Over time I’ve come to understand Jesus’ words as being far more profound than I had first imagined. If Jesus is, indeed, “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6) then it’s my faith in him – not how well I cling to the high wire – that allows me to enter through the narrow gate.
In that way, our faith journey together is less like a tightrope and more like a river.
In the river, there’s lots of room for all of us to swim around, and each of us are in different areas of the waterway. While some are swimming with the current, others are still in the shallows testing the depths. Some are momentarily caught in whirlpools of doubt. Others are in murky seasons of life, temporarily drifting in muddy waters or under dark bridges. Still others are simply trying to learn how to swim or simply goofing off in the cattail reeds.
Shores provide the boundaries. Keep away from them. Stay in the water. As long as we keep swimming and probing the river of faith together we’ll do fine.
Chances are that you’re a little farther down the waterway than many of us are. That’s the beauty of faith journeys – we’re all in different places. Will you extend grace to the rest of us as we learn to navigate the awesome river of faith that flows through that narrow gate?
Perhaps it’s time to turn our personal faith walk . . . into a faith swim.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for your grace, in which you allow me to learn and make mistakes. Please help me to extend that same grace to others as they engage in their own faith swim. Amen.
Ed Klodt
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