Navigating the Passages of Life: Part 1

The phrase that “life is journey not a guided tour” became popular in the early 1960’s.  The point of that statement is that we all have a responsibility for the choices we make that shape our life journey.  The choices we make through our lives are informed by the view we hold as to the purpose of our life.  The Bible makes it clear that God is the creator of all life, that He molded us in divine love, created us in His image & loves us unconditionally.  It is the divine love of God that ultimately defines the gift of life graciously given to us by our loving, living God.  We are created by God to reflect His light to the world & we have but a brief time to do that, for life is short as we all know.  God has empowered us with the Holy spirt & is counting on us to spread & to reflect His light & hope each & every day that we have been given.  Therefore, we need to use our time wisely, living informed & empowered by our faith & trust in our living God.  Though we have very little control over the challenges that we may encounter along the pathway of life, we do have a choice as to how we will navigate the challenges we encounter.  Sometimes we make choices that reflect the Spirit of God within us & that fans the flames of hope grounded in God’s promise of new life given to us & to others, & other times we do not.  There is no question we need God’s help in order to navigate reflecting God’s light when we lose our way & yield to earthly stressors & temptations along our path.  The hymn: “I Need Thee Every Hour”,  expresses this need clearly:

“I need thee every hour, most gracious Lord, no tender voice like thine can peace afford. I need thee, O’ I need thee; every hour I need thee:  O’ bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.

I need thee every hour, stay thou near by; temptations lose their power when thou art nigh.  I need thee, O’ I need thee; every hour I need thee;  O bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee.”

From the moment we are born, we enter onto a path where we experience strength & weakness, accomplishment & failure, joy & sorrow, life & death.  One of the most radical demands for us is the realization that our lives are lived as a series of movements or passages that involve for us, both losses & then gains - for every time we lose something, we shift & gain a new perspective or new opportunity to reflect God’s light.  Rarely is life stagnant.  Life itself requires movement & movement requires us to navigate through the challenges & make decisions as to how we will go forward. As we move through our life in general, or are in some critical accident, or develop some emergency illness, or face the death of a loved one, etc., it is sometimes a challenge not to find ourselves disillusioned with the irrevocable personal losses of; our health, our physical strength, the death & subsequent grief over the loss of loved ones,  the loss of our job, the loss of our hope & our dreams, etc.  When we find ourselves moving through a passage of loss, we can fairly easily come to the place where it seems like our whole life is filled with endless losses to the point that we sometimes don’t even recognize the gains when they come.  It is at those times that we need to reach out to God for help trusting that He is always present with us. The hymn: “Precious Lord Take My Hand” expresses this need clearly:

“Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand.  I am tired, I am weak I am worn; through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light; Take my hand, precious Lord, lead me home.”

~Posted by Rev Kathryn Bindig, MDiv. MS; Pastoral Care Minister with assistance from Rich Muscatello; Director of Business Development & Strategy