Exploring a different way

Jesus is the “way, and the truth, and the life.” He said so. And we endlessly repeat it. But do we think about what it means? And do we actually do the thing?

Recently I found myself at a gathering where I happened to sit with a man I have been acquainted with for many years. His tempestuous marriage has been no secret in the community, and so I was pleasantly surprised when he told me he has been acting in different ways toward his wife. One thing he said in particular struck me. In the course of admitting how he used to react verbally in certain situations, he said, “I know how that way goes.” He implied “that way” always went very badly in the end and never resulted in anything good. And he implied only a fool would keep on using the same old way that unfailingly makes things worse.

Yes, we all know how that way goes. We can all relate to the dog that returns to his vomit (2 Peter 2:22). We do it because we are controlled by a strong desire for instant gratification. We do it because in the moment we yield to the flesh and not the Spirit. We do it because we forget how miserable it turned out last time we did it. The devil tempts us to think we will feel better if we “get it off our chest,” and then he laughs because we do not feel better at all and have made matters so much worse.

What struck me in the man’s words “I know how that way goes” was his implication there is another way he hasn’t explored much before, one he is exploring now and may actually find he likes better once he has tried it—a way that leaves a residue of peace after the breakthrough of killing the flesh, a way that improves things afterward rather then worsening things, a way that may result in the kind of happy marriage he has never experienced before.

It is the way of dying to self, and that is the way of Christ. When Jesus says He is “the way,” he is not speaking so heavenly as to be no earthly good. He means an actual way, path, road, highway, and one that runs through the town called death. The Apostle Paul said, “I die every day!” And he means this kind of surrendering daily one’s insistence on one’s own way and scratching the itch of every desire.

I was encouraged after meeting with this old acquaintance. I am also determined to leave all the old ways that only led to misery and alienation and sojourning in the darkness, and to explore more fully and assiduously than ever before the ways of love and death that Jesus commanded and modeled for the express purpose that we should put our feet where His feet were.