desert roads

I've never quite understood the desire to make bold declarations of what one will 'give up' for God. I'm often skeptical of alter calls and dedications, of commitment events and rededication retreats that seem to have little impact beyond a week or two of changed perspective. Perhaps it's just my personality, but I value and aspire to enduring faith, to consistency.

Sadly, I'm discovering that the unfortunate root of this perspective is probably pride rather than righteousness. I say I want to be consistant, to live always oriented towards the gospel and away from myself; that I want less valleys and peaks and more narrow road. And then I find myself on this road in the desert. I am so quickly discouraged and feel lost and abandoned (though it causes me to wonder how I find myself lost on this 'straight and narrow'...) and begin to question where I'm coming from and where I'm going. Consistency. Right.

This quandary reminds me of my first year of cross country in high school. You have to understand that Colorado is absolutely gorgeous but it necessarily includes a high desert climate to achieve such stunning sunny days and brisk starry nights. High desert = dry dry and no air. So, it was my first race and we were up at about 10,000 feet. The course was laid out over a hiking path which went up the side of a mountain, turned around for the decent and then climbed again, turned back downhill and, after a long straightaway led to a quick sharp uphill sprint to the finish. It was an absolutely stunning view but the ridiculous elevation changes were more than my green legs (or lungs) could take. I finished my first race gasping for air and water and vowing never to put myself through the humiliation of such an event again.

Fast forward to two months later. I had spent a week training on hills in the mountains and was heading back down to Denver for a road race just before the end of the season. I was conditioned and 'seasoned' and ready. It was wicked hot out - enough so that folks in the neighborhoods we were running through grabbed hoses and sprayed runners as we trotted past their driveways. This course was flat flat flat and followed along a dried up river bed for the majority of the race. Dust was kicked up by the hundreds of girls running; dust that coated the back of my throat and seemed to fill my lungs with its rusty grit. Girls were dropping like flies in the oppressive heat and muscles were cramping with lactic acid and dehydration after just the first mile. Around the second mile mark there was a long flat stretch that ran right along the field we would finish at a mile later. Being the solid back of the packer that I was (am...), there were girls already finishing and throwing their exhausted bodies down on the grass. I looked behind me and before me at the runners who were still plowing ahead, fixated on the path in front of them. But now that I had seen others finishing just a short hop of a fence away, I felt incredibly discouraged and irritated that I should have to run a half mile in the opposite direction in order to reach that same mark. Then those awful thoughts about the futility of race running crept in. "What would it really matter if you dropped out? What is really going to happen if you just don't finish this one? It's not like there's anything actually waiting for you at the finish. I mean, come on JV squad, no one is going to celebrate your time..."

Then I got hit with an ice cold reality check. Literally. Some kid with a hose stood in his yard yelling at all of us to keep running as he blasted my whole right side with water. His grandparents were standing on the porch cheering us on. Coaches began shouting to us from the other side of the fence - from their vantage point of the finish line - to press on for the last mile. So I stopped thinking and rationalizing and questioning and I ran. I finished with my best time of the season and promptly collapsed on the side of the road. But I was satisfied. Also, a free gatorade and an approving slap on the back from my coach = success.

So these two situations make me wonder, how do I practice endurance in my life? What am I inclined towards with the attitudes and choices that I make? When I'm stuck in peaks and valleys I vow never to return to such difficulty or embarrassment or neediness; yet when I find myself in the middle of a long, flat, dry spot I all but give up. I question my identity and purpose and direction. I begin to theorize and justify and attempt to create new goals from right there in the middle of the race.

The past few months I've found myself on the dry and narrow desert road after a spring spent on numerous hills and valleys. I have been praying for God to quiet my heart, to teach me to desire his own and to reveal to me the Julianne-ness that keeps me from running towards it with abandon. I asked God today if those prayers make him laugh because it seems that without fail, I'll make it no more than a week after such a petition and begin to question why things are suddenly so hot and dusty and discouraging. I could almost hear the big hearty belly laugh (which is the only way I can imagine God laughing) in response to such a question. It's almost like asking if I breathe or exist.

The dynamics of a relationship with this Creator never cease to bewilder and establish me, for I so quickly lose sight of the goal and start to question if there ever was one in the first place. Yet all the while, God is hemming me in before and behind and Christ, my blessed and glorious savior, is right beside me.

Oh for consistency.

So I hold to the small evidences that I am growing, that sometimes

I find a way to love

to serve

to listen

and hear

I'm becoming more me, more the me I was created to be regardless of the path or peak I may be on. And when I wander, what joy to be found always in the fullness of grace

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it

Prone to leave the God I love

Take my heart Lord, take and seal it

Seal it for thy courts above