Heaven Now

continued

the back of the car. Slowly disentangling herself from books and teddy bears, Liz would sit up. By then of course, the train or the galloping horse or the drive-in shaped like a giant ice-cream cone would be far behind us.

And from the back of the car would come a small puzzled voice.

"Where?"

I felt the same frustration when, in my mid-twenties, I met my first "religious" people. They were forever seeing God in the passing scene. "Wasn't it wonderful how God worked that out!"

Where was this wonder-worker so plainly visible to others? Audible too, apparently. God often "told" them this or that. Listening to their matter-of-fact assertions, I felt like a three-year-old in a moving car. Why couldn't I detect these things?

Nor, at age three, did Liz understand the purpose of the long trip. A destination like Independence, Missouri, meant nothing. For Liz, the journey was a series of unrelated events. Some bad -- the restaurant where she left her crayon box behind. Some good -- the motel with the swimming pool.

Today, looking at the photo album of that summer, Liz can reconstruct the route. Today she knows we went to Independence to interview President Truman. She can see a picture of herself in a yellow dress, standing beside him on a white frame porch.

Charting the early stages of any spiritual journey is a lot like what Liz has to do to make sense of that trip in 1959. Today I know that Jesus is the destination. And because he is also the Way, I know that the goal and the journey are one. With hindsight I can reconstruct the route by which we've come. Line up seemingly unconnected events along the path that is also a Person.        <<< end