The downward path

(Audio version below)

When I started this blog ‘homecoming’, I had an image in my mind. The image was of a path that was descending; going down, down, down towards a place of ‘home’ in God. The reason this image is so important to me is because, if I’m honest, I often lose my way. I find myself stuck in systems of earning or will catch myself resenting others. I find myself comparing or I notice that I’m quick to judge. In so many ways I am not where I want to be, and yet after years of trying, I’ve discovered it is almost impossible to simply get past all of these things. In every other sphere of life we are taught that we should be going ‘up’. We want to climb a ladder in our jobs, we want to tick more things off a bucket list, we want to gather more savings and become more secure. We are taught that we should be seeing an upwards trajectory of growth in almost every area of our lives, and we spend a lot of our time working towards goals or trying to improve, build, gather and save. And as Christians, we can fall into behaviour management. We make an effort to be nice, loving and polite. This constant effort wears us down and causes us to either give up, or to feel that we are not enough. We are managing our own journeys of self-improvement. 

And yet Jesus flips everything on its head. Give up your life to find it. Pick up your cross and follow him. The lowly, meek and the poor will inherit the Kingdom. The first will be last and the last will be first. He changes the direction on us. We can find flourishing, depth and inner peace, we can abide in love, but the way there is down and not up. We can’t build a pathway up to God with our mini successes and our daily effort. We experience God’s love far more profoundly when we come in humility; when we move towards our weaknesses and failures as well as our strengths (think of the parable of the tax collector and Pharisee praying side by side in Luke 18:9-14). The downward path is about being real with our lack and allowing ourselves to rest in God’s love anyway. Day by day we can learn how to start letting this love in. It is about shining a light on the parts of ourselves that we hide from others, that we maybe even hide from ourselves, and starting to let God’s love wash over these shadow parts. It’s about making steps to release any illusion of control that we have and trusting that we don’t need to have it all together because God knows the way (which actually can be really freeing). It’s about coming, over and over again, when we struggle and when we’re bruised, to a love that never changes, never bends and that says you are clean, worthy, royal and loved.

Sometimes, for minutes, hours, or even occasionally, days, I feel like I’m walking through life with my eyes open to true reality. I can only describe the feeling as a giant sigh of relief. When so much of me is often ‘pent up’, tense and alert, I glimpse a reality where my whole being is pronounced enough. I see a God who is bigger than all of the micro and macro stresses that I carry around with me, all of the insecurities and defensive measures that I put into place, and who is saying my name, over and over, calling to my eternal and true self. I see that my scramble for love and acceptance is almost a bit comical, because I come from the source of all love and it is what I am made for. I see, for a moment, a God who is not demanding anything of me. Who doesn’t want me to sign up, to perfect, to spiritually nip and tuck, or to mould me into something better. The God of agenda doesn’t exist here. Love will bring about its own transformation in time, but I am not a project and I am not a product to be used. I am simply being invited to join in with an eternal relationship of joy that existed long before any of us did. And for a moment I can see it. And for a moment it is enough, and I am enough. 

I am very aware that I don’t always feel like this. If God’s love is the sun, the clouds will often get in the way and I can’t feel what I know to be true. But I’m starting to believe that the sun is there whether I feel it or not, and this is even more transformative. The downward path is about daily laying aside our ego, our agenda and our need for control. It’s about saying, I don’t know the way, and I don’t need to. We can still be looking to grow, expand and improve in areas of our lives, our careers and our families (effort and hard work can be good), but we come to this with a different posture. Not one of fists-clenched, straining for success but rather with a posture of surrender. Where we have rhythms of sitting in God’s love, and so we can take the knocks and set-backs when they come. Not managing everything to perfection because our identity and worth is at stake. It’s not easy. I’d say that most days I start trying to climb some ladder again, to attempt to prove myself or impress God or someone else. But the invitation is a hopeful one. When we inevitably climb these ladders (and we will), and when we fall, or something happens where we find ourselves curled up in shame, lonely or in pain, we are perhaps closer than ever to ‘home’. Because these are the moments we realise our need. And we can choose to rest because our deepest needs have already been met. We are forgiven, we are unconditionally loved, and we are part of an eternal kingdom where there is hope for those who find themselves at rock bottom. And the more that I come, the more that I find myself changing. I’m less concerned about success and I’m less concerned about being like the person next to me. I have everything I need.

I’ll be honest, these last few weeks, I’ve been trying to climb ‘up’ again. I’m tired, I’ve reached the end of myself, and yet thankfully I’ve come to a stopping place. For the thousandth time I’m hearing God’s call back to grace, and for the thousandth time I get to come back. And when I look back on my life, I have hope. Because I realise that gradually this is transforming me. I am enough. And the way down is the way up.