The Unfamiliar Path
About a month ago, I took a walk around a nearby lake - it’s man-made, a dam built after a flood devastated the area in 1935. I remember noticing the submerged grills and parking spots as I began my walk around that day. I’m told this happens often in the spring, and even though the water was greeting the path in a few small areas, I didn’t worry because I could still easily make my way around its intrusion and rain was still a few hours away.
The route I took was about 5 miles in total, and towards the middle, I stopped to rest on a bench - I have tendonitis in my right foot, so breaks like these are frequent lately. I wrote a haiku and sat in the presence of God for a while, waiting for the pain to subside, watching the surface of the lake ripple in the growing wind, the birds making family plans, the trees waiting for their promised leaves, and the clouds expanding in the sky. I breathed deeply in creation, as creation, and I prayed about what’s next, reflecting on how every possible path produces a strange combination of fear and elation.
that tingle is a
new adventure, hanging on
the hope of your yes
After realizing I’d spent nearly 2 hours in the park, I got up from the bench and made my way back to my vehicle. With each step, I thought about the decision I was pretty sure I’d maybe made, which I might share someday when I’m more confident. You see, that’s my problem. I analyze decisions to death, and then to their funeral and burial, many of them somehow becoming undecided through the process. Paralysis.
A cautious pragmatist, I spend hours mulling things over, but my heart consistently calls out to remind my mind, “Some of your most cherished moments and moves have been spontaneous or unexpected - don’t forsake your feelings for logic.”
My mind returns, “Don’t be so lost in emotion that you make regrettable decisions.”
I think the mind and the heart both speak truth here, and there’s a scripture that reminds me of this tension I feel within myself (Philippians 1:9-11):
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.”
Paul, the writer of this letter, is urging the reader to love, to feel, but to do so with discernment and thought. He’s saying we need both things in balance to live lives of glory.
Pair feeling with knowledge.
Love fiercely but intelligently.
Chase after what lights us up using wisdom and discernment.
Before long, I found myself back near the start of the path, but things were not how I left them. The lake had flooded the path on both sides, leading to the lake on one side and a swollen stream on the other, so there was no way to go around. And there I stood, for more than a few minutes - should I wade through or try the woods? As the water continued to gather upon itself, I chose the woods and walked along the stream, surveying for a favorable place to leap across. I laughed to myself because I’d just written a poem about the “the tingle of adventure,” and here I was, off-roading and hoping I’d find a way to the other side of things.
The water on the path was only ankle-deep, so I really could have taken the way I came in, but I wasn’t willing to accept the outcome: wet feet. The way we know will always be there, but it can leave us with ‘wet feet’ of a different kind - forfeited dreams, unmet exceptions, or unrealized potential, for starters.
Jumping the stream is the easy part; it’s harder to make and follow through with the decision to leap. The inertia of the way you know is a hard thing to overcome, but once you find yourself in motion, the work often comes more easily and naturally than you expected. Speaking of which, after hopping on a few rocks, I found myself on the other side of the stream with dry feet, minimal pain, and the beginnings of rain pricking at my skin.
Just in time.
Do you have a new thing you’ve been thinking about exploring, a new path you’ve been wanting to walk down? Taking the new path in the park left me with dry feet and a story to tell, so just imagine where your new path might lead you.
