I wake up one day and suddenly I realize that life is a journey. Perhaps because I see the end in sight; perhaps because I wonder where I am and what I am doing here. I look before me and see many possible paths, yet I know that I can only take one—and that dithering around trying to decide might cost me my opportunity to choose.
Because I realize that without choosing I am being moved along in a path I did not choose. It is easy to just float, “going with the flow.” I encounter life as it happens, and have no real understanding of why it happens the way it does. Or I believe stories—the American Dream, the race to the top, the notion of myself as a “rugged individual”, or as a player, or an objective observer. Even as a rebel I conform to the notion of what a rebel is—few and far between are those who go so strongly against the flow that they create a flow in a new direction.
And then I hear a call: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” This call negates all that I am, all that I have built up to this point. It strips my “identity” from me, though indeed what it strips from me is not the truth. And it promises a new identity: “And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
I hear this call, or one like it, and I step into its path. I leave my context and abandon my old life and its security and its encumbrance. Now I have nothing, and nobody to protect me. I am like Cain, “a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
I am a Christian, a follower of Christ. I have left behind the web of connections that formed me and told me who I was and who I was not. Now I hear a different voice crying “beloved child of God.” Of course I don’t believe it. It is too good to be true. Yet the longing it creates in me leads me away from all that I called my own.
Having started on my journey, I realize that I don’t know what kind of a journey it is. Is it a “sight-seeing tour”? Or is it a quest?
The difference is crucial. If it is a sight-seeing tour, then the journey is the thing. Maximizing my experiences is the crucial point. Anything I miss, any opportunity I waste, is a loss. I only have one chance to take in all the journey offers. And so I must seek and even demand that the desire of my eyes be fulfilled.
If, on the other hand, it is a quest, then what matters is not the journey but the goal. In fact, the goal is all that matters; the journey is simply the means for achieving the goal. It doesn’t matter what I miss. A preoccupation with sights along the way can even hinder or render impossible achieving the goal. Nor does it matter what I leave behind or lose along the way. “Better to lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
On a sight-seeing tour, companions are part of the experience and are thus mainly of entertainment value. A bad companion can “ruin the trip” for someone. And since on such a trip I seek my own experience, every companion is in some sense a means to my ends.
On a quest, however, companions are united by the common desire to achieve the quest. It doesn’t matter if I enjoy the company of my companions. What matters is that they are true to the quest. Ironically the quest can reveal more of the nature and character of my companions, bringing us closer together than a tour because of the urgency of the quest and the way the quest forces me to see beyond the outwardly attractive face people usually put on.
Yes, a quest. “One thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Suddenly the “hard sayings” of Jesus make sense. Why must I “hate” father and mother? Why must I renounce all that I have? Because a quest may require me to leave any or all of them behind. I sell all that I have because those things may hold me back from achieving the goal. To miss the goal of the quest is to lose everything; to lose everything but nevertheless achieve the quest is to gain everything.
And this quest alienates me from everyone who does not aim for it. “And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east. Thus they separated from each other.” We are not seeking the same thing. Unless you share the goal, the effort and renunciation the quest entails are incomprehensible.
As I follow the quest, I am led into “the wilderness.” Even the call itself begins as a trip into the wilderness. What is this wilderness and why am I here?
I mentioned earlier how difficult it is to blaze a new trail. Our foe is the very thing we need to survive—our connectedness. A baby needs to be connected to other human beings to survive and grow into a true human being. Even more than simple care and meeting of physical needs, babies need affection and touch. As we grow we find ourselves in the context of the relationships that touch us. Our parents tell us who we are and initiate us into the culture and ways of being that they themselves know. Many of the important aspects of our lives are strongly affected by the way we are raised. The realm of possibilities for our lives—the kinds of things that we can become or make of ourselves—are shaped and limited by those around us at this time.
This shaping and limiting is not iron determinism, but it is mostly definitive for most people. In the normal case we become who we are by hearing people tell us who we are and believing them. Even rebellion is usually molded by the authority against whom one rebels—the rebel becomes the mirror image of the authority. This explains the frequent likeness of the rebel to the object of his rebellion.
Again, this shaping happens at a very deep level. Even the language we speak helps shape the way we think—and that we get from those to whom we are connected. Attitudes, possibilities, world views—all come to us from outside.
But in the wilderness there is nobody to tell me who I am, how to live, what to be. I go into the wilderness to die. But sometimes in the wilderness I encounter … other possibilities. I hear a voice … it tells me to cheat, to find a shortcut out of the wilderness. I am hungry, thirsty, lonely. The voice tells me to build a city — to provide for my needs and security. But I know where that leads and I ignore the voice. And I am fed with food that has no earthly source.
The voice speaks again. Why be so hard on myself? Why deny myself the good things of life—the beauty, the refinement, the window that looks down on everyone … but I recognize the pleasant prison dream. And I demand nothing—“though he slay me, yet will I hope in him.” Therefore I see one standing, and under his feet as it were a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the heavens. And I eat and drink food and drink from heaven, and I am not destroyed.
The voice speaks yet a third time. I hear a note of desperation. He will give me anything, everything, everything I ever wanted … if in return I, well, a simple prayer or two will do (for now). I see the empires, the riches, cargo of gold, silver, purple and silk, wood and ivory, bronze, iron, marble, wine, oil, wheat, cattle, sheep, horses … and human lives. All his to offer, mine to take. But I go into the wilderness to die. Anything I find there is a mirage—all the real stuff is on the other side. And so I trudge on, knowing whom only I will serve, and at my last extremity something bears me up.
But there was a death. I am no longer connected; I no longer hear the voice, or the voices, telling me … telling me…. Instead, I see only the quest. Each day I set my feet on its path; each day I turn from what is seen to what is unseen, knowing that what is seen is an evanescent mirage in the wilderness. And what is unseen is the true reality that lasts forever.