I love paths. I named my blog and life coaching work Pathway to Peace because I think that's what we are all searching for - peace. Yes, peace, even more than happiness, aren't we all just after the absence of the angst this broken world often wells up in all of us? I know of only one way to circumvent that angst and that is with the word trust - a trust that whatever happens in this world, come what may, somehow we will get through it to a place of resilience, a restoration, a return to our peace. The book, The WAYMAKER, shows us a way to get on that path to peace, using real life examples and a biblical foundation to find the way through the dark times that come to all of us. I share some of its main ideas in hope that you will read the entire thing, with all the beautiful eloquence of Anne Voskamp, made complete with how she applies what she has learned through her own experiences of letting the Waymaker lead her out of the dark valleys in her own life.
She uses the acronym SACRED as a signpost of how to travel - a habit of daily reorientation, to make sure we're on the right path. She compares this to a habit like a nun's set of clothes that shows what we're devoted to, a uniform worn to make our way through this life, instead of just forging our own way forward.
Stillness to know God. Attentiveness to Hear God. Cruciformity to Surrender to God Revelation to See God. Examination to Return to God. Doxology to Thank God.
When introducing the first signpost, STILLNESS, Anne makes this statement: "Our battle is to keep still - while God does the battle." She goes on to say that a Christian soldier learns this only after years of training, that we can't be still when we aren't driven by our own expectations. God knows about trouble in Paradise. Ps. 46:10 advises us of the importance of this first signpost: Be still and know that I am God. She talks about how we spend more time on stories on the news, and about Hollywood, and Facebook than we do with the Good News, trying to stay in His story. She points out that Exodus 14:10-14 also shows us the importance of being still. Moses said: Do not fear. Stand firm and see (watch). The Lord will fight for you. Be still. She ends the section with this statement: "If our first sin was to turn from God, detach the fruit from the tree, and savor it, then our return to wholeness is to turn, attach to God and savor Him." Resilience, return, restoration - that's the way to peace.
The next rerouting along the way is to return to not only being still, but to ATTENTIVENESS, listening and watching to see what God is doing. After all, Romans 8:28 tells us that ALL things work together for good to those who love the Lord. Anne translates that to her definition of hope: "Hope isn't insisting on the way we imagined things would go, but having an imagination that whatever comes our way will be worked out for our good." It may not always look like it from an earthly perspective. We need to stop looking at what is in the way, and look for His way. Hebrew 11:6 tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. Life is not about an easy way but an attached-to-God way. To be chosen doesn't always mean you get the way you'd choose, but it means you were chosen for a good way. We can expect God to come, but it isn't in the ways you'd expect - all we can expect is to be loved through whatever path He has allowed us to be on. If we aren't living attentively, we become deeply disoriented, we keep asking questions of God instead of asking what God is asking of us. We sell our souls to whatever we pay attention to. But what God wants from us is to trust His ways, paying attention to all His blessings, even in the midst of dark times.
If we are following these first two steps on the path, we will soon arrive at the need for the strange word CRUCIFORM which simply means to stretch our arms out in the way Jesus did for us, surrendering to what God asks of us. Moses gives us this model: standing at the edge of the Red Sea, having no idea what the Lord was up to, but with his arms up and out like a cross, the precursor of the cross upon which Jesus' outstretched arms also brought an unlikely rescue. When I think of Cruciforrrrrmity I think of these words: Repentance, Rest, Relationship, Reorienting, Repetition, Resilience, Revelation, all leading to Restoration and Resurrection. Cruciformity is what transforms. As Anne says, "It's when you give yourself to the Way Himself that you know there's going to be a way through." And it may be a Red Sea way, not one you'd have chosen at all, but when you look back you see His hand.
It takes getting this far to be able to see the next signpost: REVELATION - to be able to see God. It seems all roads lead to some sort of Gethsemane in each of our lives. The question is, can we surrender like Jesus to say, "Not my will, but yours be done"? Anne suggests that terrible clouds can actually be torches, just like the one that led the Israelites on their journey. She suggests that it is truly a mystery how God has a plan, even through the darkest times, to extricate, reinstate and celebrate even as the father did to the prodigal. She says, "Not asking for eyes to see God IN the darkness, we become blind and lost and afraid." This is surely a mystery, just as the Holy Spirit can be our guide in the darkness now. She tells us that the way out of pain is cruciform, reaching out to God's mystery of redemption and revelation even in our pain instead of our natural tendency to curve in to ourselves in what Augustine called homo incurvatus in se, the beginning of all our defaults and addictions. Turn any way but to God and we miss revelation. We get lost and our fears get louder in our souls. But if we keeeeep turning to Him, walking His way, we begin to see Him even in the darkest paths. This is a hard mystery to accept, but Anne says, with examples from her own family, her marriage, her worry for her own children, "There will be days when you think this is a mocking joke, that any of these dark clouds can be lighting the way, and you will weep, but there will be days when you know it, and will not be afraid. Within the clouds there is a light to lead the way." She is vulnerable in her honest sharing, telling us she has been "pig-pen low" like the prodigal, that she has suffered "valley-of the-shadow of death desperation", and has suffered "literal physical heart failure", but that the only real danger of life in the darkness is to start curving away from the Waymaker and toward ourselves, that instead of looking for revelation in the dark, we start looking for relief. She tells us that these dark times are the chances to trust God with our pain, not deflect it. She calls these times "trust-greenhouses", a journey from bondage to bonding. And tells us that unless we long for more of a revelation of Him - we fall into addictions to far lesser loves, that make us far lesser versions of ourselves.
The next signpost keeps us on the road by telling us to constantly EXAMINE our return to God. She tells us: "Life isn't about how far you've come or how far you have to go. It isn't about the detours, the wrong ways, the wildernesses, or the overwhelm, life is about living constantly in the direction of God." Returning - necessary for us wandering sheep. She reminds us that God isn't transactional, He is relational, making the way to be with us through pain, rather than keeping us from it and that new rhythms require repetition...returning, returning, returning. Lamentations 3:20 also reminds us - Let us examine our ways, test them, and return to the Lord. Are we turning in and trying to find our own way or reaching out to His strength? It makes me think of one of my favorite verses, Isaiah 30:15 - In returning and rest is my salvation. In quietness and trust is my strength. More wisdom from Anne's pen: "When we attach our identity to being loved no matter what we are experiencing on earth, we find there is nothing more we need. If we turn the pages of God's Word, turn toward Jesus, our whole life can turn around right in the middle of the darkest path". She warns us: "When we want what we want too much, when our love for what we want outsizes our love for God, our fears outsize our living. As Anne turned me toward Psalm 46:1-3, the mystery of a revelation of poetry came out of nowhere:
Our God is a safe, calm place to hide, A Waymaker along the ride, Where we can not fear when faced with cliffs of doom, But find that in our hearts courage has made room To face overwhelm, detours, wilderness, and deserts Only to find He never deserts us. The Jacob-wrestling God will always fight for us The God of angel armies always protects us. God is our refuge and our strength In In trouble our ever-present help, We We must turn to Him Instead of our self.
And there we encounter the last signpost - not D for Detour - but D for Doxology - no more detours - only a blessed assurance of a straight path into God arms in thankfulness, because based on Ex.15:1-2, what comes after exodus is praise and thanksgiving. Anne reminds us that in a matter of days the Israelites went from abject terror to astonishing adoration. And we can too, even without an earthly deliverance. She tells us that if Jesus could give thanks even on the night He was betrayed, then we can give thanks in the midst of anything, and there is always something to be thankful for. A habit of thankfulness is always our exodus out of bitterness, and Christ-exultation always leads to some sort of exodus. Dark places need not be places of despair, they can be spaces of divine dialogue. She lets us in on her personal revelation: "When I have been holding on by a thread, what's been holding me together was this looking for a thread of grace still running through everything." It reminds me of what Anne Frank said even though she'd been in hiding for months, "In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." And we can remember that in spite of everything, unlike people, God is always, always good at heart.
When we use these signposts from the bible that Anne has so beautifully elaborated on, we can see that this path is a way to a meaningful life. As Anne says, "Finding a way through is really about finding a way of life, a new way of thinking, a new way of being. The way through happens wherever you stop focusing on how to get out of something and focus on what you can get out of this to become Christlike...to be pressed into the narrow pathway through. Looking from this vantage point, you see everything differently, the whole of the story, always making a way into the promised land of union" - as the bible tells us in Is 45:3 "I will give you treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you will know I am the Lord...who summons you by name."
If you've made it this far, I have to tell you, that this is only a brief outline of all the beautiful, real-life wisdom found in this book. I've decided I don't have to come up with my own thoughts to try to share what I've been learning in this blog which somehow I feel called to write. Instead, I can send you right to the source of where I'm learning - from giants in the faith that walk before me, and Anne Voskamp is surely one of them.
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