Lent Day 7: Path

This path (hopefully you can see it in the picture) is one created by our mail-carriers in our front yard as they come to deliver our mail. It is funny that no matter who delivers our mail (it varies from day to day) they all walk straight through our front yard in the same place and have created this path, which is more and more obvious with each day that we do not get out to mow our lawn.

I remember when I first noticed it several months ago, I was concerned? Where did this path come from? Was someone up to some mischief? Then I was actually home and on the couch when the mail was delivered and watched the mailman walk right through the lawn and up to our front door to deliver the mail. I was struck with a mix of indignation and laughter. How dare he walk right through our lawn! Didn't he know that it isn't polite to tread across the grass? But of course he and the other mail carriers walk across the lawn. Very few people, when presented with a sidewalk that seems to take extra effort and be anything but direct will opt to follow said sidewalk instead of walking across the lawn, or through bushes, etc., etc., etc. I do it myself at grocery stores and parking lots where there are medians planted with bushes and shrubs. I'm not really mad, because our driveway/sidewalk really isn't a direct route to our front door, unless you are getting out of the car. They use the sidewalk when they leave the house; this path is just a more direct way to get to the house from the direction they are coming. No big deal.

There are probably a hundred analogies I could draw from this path. We take the easy way; take the more direct path; don't stray from the path laid out by the Lord, etc., etc.
However, the one that I think of when I look at this path, now less obtrusive as my husband was able to get out and mow, is that sometimes we are asked to forge a new path. Sometimes when following God we are asked to take a 'more difficult' path. Jesus took a path that was not expected; he didn't take the path that the Jews desired by becoming a powerful, political King. He swerved off of that path and made his own path--a path that led to the cross--because he knew that ultimately that was what he was called to and that was the way that God would be reconciled with His people (see 2 Corinthians 5:11-21 on reconciliation through Christ). And am I ever thankful that Jesus created this path and stands and speaks in our defense (1John 2:1)

"Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'" Matthew 26:39

(Hey did you notice that this post actually ties back to Easter?)