This past week I went to the Cleveland Clinic to visit a man from John Knox following his surgery. It took awhile for the attendant at the front desk to locate the room number. At last with a rather confused look on his face he gave me E20-12. Meandering through the Clinic I arrived on the second floor of the Emergency unit but had no clue which hallway to take. Two men working on the intercom system saw my confused look, inquired about the room I was seeking, and led me through doors into the unit. Soon I found myself walking down a white corridor. Every now and then I would find doctors scrubbing in and large lights hovering over surgical tables. Toward the end of the corridor and nearing E20-12 I realized I was heading right into my friends surgical room. This realization was confirmed by a doctor who looked at me with utter shock. This pastor with no scrubs, no sanitary boots, cap or gloves was walking around the surgical unit, nearly walking in on a surgery in progress. At the moment of my sighting, two or three other doctors rushed into the corridor. They were not real happy to see me. In no time, I was briskly escorted out of the unit.

Sometimes we drift to places we should not be.

We enter arguments we are far too passionate about and cannot govern our tempers.
We enter environments that are filled with very painful memories and we're not ready to return.
We enter relationships that are just plain toxic and find life being sapped out of us.
We enter places of past or present addictions hoping we'll be able to handle the pressure.

Sometimes we go alone to these places, other times we are led. Sometimes we recognize our own state of being in a bad place. Other times, someone calls it to our attention and leads us out. Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote,
“I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it— but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.”

So if we are going to sail toward the port of heaven, we've got to know our bearings. We need to live not just in our heads, but attuned to what is surrounding us and what is happening within us. We also need to be tenacious in our petition that God would go before us, wherever we intend to go. Moses said to God on behalf of a people who desperately needed God, “If your presence will not go before us, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people, unless you go with us? In this way, we shall be distinct, I and your people, from every people on the face of the earth” (Exodus 33:15-16).

Certainly we will enter some tough places; places that will try our patience and test our faith and prove our integrity. But as children of God, we do not go alone. So before we head anywhere, we first call out for God's guiding, informing, and sustaining hand to guide us.


Vaya con Dios

Tom

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