No Paths

There are no paths to God, but that doesn't mean God is inaccessible. And just what are paths anyway? Aren't they ultimately just futile attempts to slavishly get on God's good side? If you view God as an angry deity to be appeased, you will try anything to avoid the wrath. Attempting to avoid punishment is hard work and is indicative of a guilty conscience.

Whenever I hear that someone is on a "path", I feel a combination of wonder and pity. I wonder why that person finds it necessary to be on a path. I pity them because I know that they are motivated by fear. Their feeling of angst must be excruciatingly life-sapping. And besides all of that, I know that God loves them passionately, but that love seems alien to them.

But people love their path. There are so many out there. There are even people who are willing to sell their path to you for three easy payments of $19.95 plus shipping and handling. These path "products" are usually nothing more than "to do" lists, giving the impression that God wants everyone to be slaves to the grind.

I'm beginning to understand why Jesus said that no one comes to the Father except through him. To us in the west it sounds like an exclusionary statement, but it's the most inclusionary statement ever made by a human being. It means that we can, all together, join hands and walk out of our slavery and into arms of God. If the cross demonstrated anything at all, it is chiefly this: that we have access to God, not by our humanly devised plans and paths, but by the Way that God himself provided. The Way to God is all God's doing. The only thing left to do is rest from laboriously inventing our own ways. We can stop being so religiously busy and tend to things that are more pressing, like justice, mercy, and walking humbly with God along the Way.