The Straight and Narrow Path

From my book, Nothing Worth Doing Is Easy...

The “straight and narrow path” metaphor was one I always had a lot of trouble understanding, since I grew up being told a good Christian’s life would be easy and full of prosperity. I always knew what it meant, but I didn’t really understand how it could apply when the life of a good Christian was supposedly this closely guided path of ease and success. But as I continue to grow in my faith, that concept is one I continue to understand better and better, with each passing day.

I realize now that the metaphor I’ve been hearing throughout my whole life was correct, but the problem came in the life application I was being told to put into it. It didn’t make any sense that life getting easier could mean I was on the straight and narrow path, because it can’t. I’m a firm believer in the opposite of that concept, in fact.

I believe a Christian who’s really on the straight and narrow path will experience more hardship throughout the course of their spiritual journey, rather than less. For that reason, I look at my years of medical and social issues as simply stepping stones and indicators that I must be doing something right. And frankly, I welcome any more issues I may encounter, since more of the same problems will further solidify my belief that I’m doing what I need to be doing and I’m still on the right path in my life.

Don’t get me wrong, though, that doesn’t mean I don’t think about it or I’m not apprehensive about what the future may hold. I most certainly do have those thoughts. Going through a shunt malfunction is far from what I’d call a desirable or fun experience and cancer is a whole lot worse. Those are things I’d be more than happy to never have to go through again and honestly, there’s little I wouldn’t give to make it so they never happened, in the first place.

I’ve been told by my doctor that I’ll almost certainly get my way with the cancer, since there’s roughly a ninety percent or better chance that it won’t come back, but the shunt malfunctions are a whole different story. The hydrocephalus that led to the need for my shunt is a disorder with no cure and a VP shunt is a manmade mechanical device that will inevitably break at some point, so a shunt malfunction will happen again. I’d be lying if I said having that looming over me never caused any anxiety.

But when I do experience that anxiety or start to dwell on things I shouldn’t, I think about one of my favorite passages in the Bible and I quickly realized that the comfort and reassurance I need is simply a prayer away. That passage comes from Matthew 18:7, in which Jesus says, “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to the man through whom the stumbling block comes!”

The last thing I want is to let my own overactive mind be the cause of my stumbling blocks, so that particular verse always speaks pretty loudly to me, along with the subsequent verses, in which Jesus talks about removing the things from your life that become stumbling blocks. I’m not always as successful as I want to be in all cases, but that doesn’t mean I’ll stop trying to do the best I can.

When I do start to find myself getting into my own head, so to speak, the perfectionist in me is usually to blame. I know I’m not perfect and as all humans do, I’ll likely always have some form of sin in my life, no matter how hard I try to eliminate it. When I find the perfectionist taking over and getting out of control, that’s yet another time when the influence music has always had on my life comes in handy.

My initial reaction to the perfectionist in my head causing doubts and anxiety is to pray about it and when I do, it seems like music is what usually comes up to provide the answer to my prayers. One song, in particular, that I didn’t come across until relatively recently is by the Christian power metal band Theocracy. The song, Around the World and Back, contains within it a line that says, “Your greatest acts are filthy rags, but grace alone is free, so rest in Me.” That line, along with similar sentiments in several songs I enjoy listening to, is just what I need to get me out of the hole created by the perfectionist’s influence.

I’ve heard this subject preached about pretty often in church throughout my life and I know I’m not alone in my struggle, but I often find the concept of grace to be, for lack of a better way to put it, kind of hard to accept. As humans, we all have a tendency to want at least some semblance of control over what happens to us and on top of that, today’s society is very much one of give and take. We give, so we expect to be able to take something back in return for our efforts.

The concept of a genuine gift that comes with no active reciprocation from the recipient of it is nearly unheard of among people in today’s world. That’s exactly what I think is the main reason behind the struggles I and so many others have with accepting grace. People, myself included, want to place our own standards of how things work on God, so we expect to be able to earn the gift of salvation through our works.

Intellectually, I know this belief is completely unfounded in scripture and is pretty concisely refuted in Ephesians 2:8, but it’s still a hard one to let go. Believe me, I know. That’s a concept I may not ever fully master, but I still keep trying.