Exit Ramps

If life really is a highway, as we used to sing, then what happens when we realize that the road we’re on doesn’t go to the destination that we’d originally thought? How do we get off, change directions, and take a new path? How do we even know when we need to get off?

Let me back up. I recently read a book called Angry Conversations with God, written by Susan Isaacs. In it, she described a season in her life that she calls her “middle class white girl’s dark night of the soul.” It’s that crisis in life that doesn’t compare to a “real” crisis – Darfur, for example – but is very real and very painful to the person actually living it. God’s presence is nowhere to be found.

She was describing my life. God’s presence is nowhere to be found.

I know, theologically, that He’s here. He says He’ll never leave me nor forsake me, and I believe that. It’s all I’ve got. And, of course, there are certain fingerprints that He leaves behind. He hasn’t abandoned me – it’s just that I can’t hear His voice or feel His presence in the ways that I could before.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s the only way that we grow. Fabulous. I’m all for growth. This still sucks.

I’ve been on the same highway all of my life. Sure, it’s had some pretty major curves in it, but overall, it’s been the same road. It’s the road that I got on as soon as I was able to make decisions for myself.

It’s the road of the status quo. It’s the road of careers, paychecks, and keeping up with the Joneses. It’s the road of believing that the abundant life is one of luxury cars, home ownership, and a nice wardrobe. It’s the road of quiet submission to popular beliefs and cultural pressures. And I’m leading the parade.

I followed it through high school and college. I vowed I’d get off, that I’d do things differently and pursue what my heart thought was important. I underestimated the difficulty and the unpopularity of that goal, so I stayed on the road I’d been on and watched as the exit went by.

God caught up with me one day a few years back and screwed up both my head and my ability to stay on the Highway of Misplaced Values for the rest of my life. He showed me that there was this thing called grace – that when Jesus died on the cross, my sins were forgiven and I was adopted into His family. Eternity was a guarantee, if I’d choose to accept it. It wasn’t exactly a hard sell. It was a giant curve in the road, but the road didn’t change. I was going to heaven and I had hope, but what did that really do for me right now?

Which brings me to where I am now. For the past few years, God has been trying to teach me who He says I am. What He says flies directly in the face of what the culture says, although to be fair, I like what He says better. The problem is that He’s pretty quiet and the culture is deafening. It isn’t that I don’t want to believe Him. It’s just that I’m busy, the world is loud, and His truths go against everything that I’d ever heard or believed. I’m far too proud – I trust my own views of myself and the world far more that I trust His. Sadly, I haven’t have either the motivation to discover what He really thinks towards me or the determination to believe it.

Until now. It almost feels like He gave me an ultimatum: “Figure out and choose to believe what I say, or this is as far as you’re going to go. It’s your choice – you can either keep going down this road, or you can get off at the next exit, and your life will be forever changed. But you can’t do this halfway anymore. There’s a world out there that’s not only desperate to hear these same truths but also desperate to see them lived out. You have no idea what’s in store for you if you’ll just trust Me.”

It’s like there’s a sign up ahead: Exit, One Mile. I want to take it. Will I?