Our Long Walk

Hope stirs...

It's been a long winter break...they usually are, but this one is especially. My feet were chilled continuously last night, I kept waking up to frozen toes.

Then morning comes (and I sleep in) while the sun rises and beauty abounds (Question: is it still beautiful somewhere even if no one ever sees it? hehe) I woke up and decided to climb a mountain, one I'd been on before a little earlier this break...but I never got to the end of the trail. Today I was going to walk on that path until it ended.

I read "The Long Walk" by Stephen King last night. 100 boys had to march at a certain pace until they all "bought their ticket" (i.e. violated the rules in some way--being too slow, falling down from exhaustion--and were sot by the soldiers traveling alongside them). The only boy sparred was the winner...and by the end, it didn't matter that he'd won. Apparently, this walk was the national pastime of the country and people had bets on who would be the winner. The winner also got whatever he wanted for the rest of his life...that's mainly what drew the boys in...
Brutal book.

Anyway, reading this and reading about "the Crowd"...this crazed entity that was watching these boys march to their death and loving it...I was aware of the stark contrast between the reality of the boys on that long walk and how the way Christians live. See, we're all on a walk in our lives, we're all dying as we go along (as one boy said to the main character "we've been dying all along") it's just that the walk in the book was much more simplified and put into a smaller frame of time...but we are all on this walk, dying as we go. Some die quickly, maybe before life has even started for them and it seems unfair...others are still in the race, but they've been so mowed down by all the difficulties that have come their way that they are no longer truly living or responsive to life around them, they're just still moving forward, who knows why?...others have a long walk, filled with all that life should be filled with, but then it all ends badly...

These boys had terror as the reality of their walk...friends shot down mercilessly...I think many people live this reality. Life just keeps getting worse, until you just have to go numb to all the pain and stop feeling disappointed or you'll explode (several of the boys in the book explode in this way--attacking the soldiers who escorted them, or, in some cases, pleading with the soldiers for mercy). We've resigned ourselves in order to survive. We believe the world is a dark and terrible place where senseless things happen and...what more is there to say?

When this worldview is contrasted with the Christian worldview...we Christians simply look naive!! It seems as though Christians wander through life with their head in the clouds, smiles plastered on our faces as we offer shallow bandages ("it'll be alright, sweetie, God's in control" and "it may look terrible, but God has a purpose for this too!") to those who are experiencing the ravages of war (life can be war, right?) We seem clueless...

...and maybe some of us are...maybe we're stupid and we don't realize what's going on in the world, the enormity of children dying all around because they are unable to have food in their bellies...curse us, if you will. Many of us are clueless. I was.

But then there are nights like tonight when you see beauty in the sky (hence the picture in this blog) and you realize that despite death and destruction all around, life has its moments of joy.

But back to the Christians...

I went on my own long walk today, up the mountain. I kept thinking on that book...I tried to walk fast, like they had to, without stopping...up mountains and along roads where people were driving by like every day...and I finished what I started. I found the end of that trail and even made it home.

You know why we Christians see it differently--it's because our walk is different. The "Crowd" surrounding us is not malicious...it's a crowd of those who have already made it through this race and are now cheering us on. "Fight the good fight!" "Keep going, you can make it!" Christians know that this life is not easy, but we know many have already made it and we can make it too. We have someone fighting on our behalf, someone who knows us more intimately than any other ever could and who has already gone before us. He knows how our lives can be used in the best way possible and we follow Him, even though the path may lead through despair and heartbreak and us having to give more of ourselves than we ever thought possible. We remember that He asked us to pick up our cross and follow Him and so we do it gladly...because He did it first for us.

Maybe that's why we can keep going and even have a smile on our face as we go. We even have songs of praise on our lips, because we know how very much our God loves us (His Son proved this on the cross) and we are thankful.

So we look stupid and some make fun of us...but we are still walking and praising our God as we go. He is in control of what goes on in our lives...we have placed our trust in Him and He is good.
He will lead us home in the end.

O, Christians are a strange lot. Live through us, Jesus!