In one of the May Still-Speaking devotionals (available on-line at www.ucc.org), Ron Buford talks about his mother who’d ask him to drive her for needed chores. She never went about her tasks in a straight line, he says. She’d ask him to drive her someplace, then she’d dictate the next one only after completing the first. Often, he’d need to retrace routes already traveled. He’d ask, “Mom, why can’t we just plan an efficient route?” Men, says Buford, seem to have this inherent need to be hunters / gatherers. They go, get what they need, then come back. Women (like his mother) defined the tasks by relational goals, not efficiency of travel. So when he said “Yes, I’ll take you mom,” he knew it meant, “We’ll go by whatever paths you need to take us to get there.”
God said to Abraham, “I want you to pack the car and go. And later I’ll show you where I want you to be.” I agree with Buford’s observation. God calls us to go from here to there, but it’s seldom a straight line. We celebrated Lynn Wetzel’s and Sally Maxwell’s ecclesiastical councils this past month. Both told their stories of God’s call that took them every which way. (Or were they traveling every which way until they responded to God’s call?)
As it was for Abraham, I believe God does say, “Get up. Go. I’ll show you later where I want you.” That’s the trust walk of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. Abraham wandered all over the desert, including two trips to Egypt, until he got to the Promised Land. Ask Lynn and Sally: God’s gift in the call is as much about the journey as the destination.
