I was browsing my archives and ran across this post from last November: Reaching for Jesus. It’s fun to read some stuff I’ve written even in the past year, and to see where I’ve come from on this blog, etc. I was reading this analogy I had, and I’m wondering what I was really thinking when I wrote this:
“If you put a group of people at the bottom of a rock climbing route, no matter how awesome the crack is, each person will take a slightly different route. Yet, they are all seeking after the same thing, to reach the top of the climb. And I began to wonder how this might pertain to the Christian journey. You have a group of people who are on this ‘journey’ but each of them is going to do it differently. So often, we think “Hey — THIS handhold, or THIS foothold worked for me, so it’s definitely going to work for you – reach there, up, to your right, come on!” And in reality, it may or may not work for that person — and they may find a handhold or foothold that works so much better for them. But what happens, is that I may be so offended, distraught or worried about them because they didn’t do it “my way,” that I forget to stop and realize that they are reaching for the same goal – they are seeking the same Jesus – they’re just doing it a different way. [Thoughts…?]
I wonder about the people at the bottom of the route. Did I mean them to be people from different denominations or traditions within Christianity…or was I thinking something broader than that…