There are times when you want to throw away the towel. You want to hang your boots and just call it a day. You know na, those times when you have reached the end of yourself, when you know that you can’t do anything by yourself. The towel is smelling sef. The putrid fetor of blood and tears is mingled with the stench of sweat of many days. You have slaved away under the sun that has proven itself a scalding taskmaster. Your back bears the bruises from backstabbers and backbiters.
You stare at the sun one last time. Each morning it arrives in its fiery chariot and drags you wickedly through the hustle and bustle that is hopelessly wired into your DNA. You can’t fight and even if you could you would fall flat on your face in defeat. Your fists are clenched in sheer disdain. Perhaps, the one who dares to call himself the “Divine Intelligence” has placed your destiny on reverse.
Like chicken wings, you are trapped on the devil’s saucer – a delightfully prepared meal for the hounds of hell.
WAIT. What happens when you travel for miles on the road called ‘self’ and then you come to a point where to move an inch forward would send you plummeting to your death and you can’t go back, turn left or saunter right? What happens when all you have ever known to be true and sure comes crashing down on your head like a house made of straw and menacing bricks?
Clearly there is a road that seems bright and cheery. There is a street that is wild, wide and welcoming. There is a pernicious path that is seemingly palliative but yet waxes strong with garish gruesomeness.
The end thereof is destruction? You cannot say so about the one whom we have surnamed Anointed One. He even without mincing words shows us his business card and emblazoned in blood red and sky blue colors are the words “I AM THE WAY”.
Can we trust Him enough to travel the path that he paved with his blood? Can we dare to take a detour from the road trekked by the masses and venture into Grace 316
Avenue?
You say you don’t need a Saviour? You say this is for losers who don’t know their purpose in life. Don’t you realize how utterly empty your life is? You suffer from an acute case of eight-to-five-osis. Your faith is restricted to meal-side or drive-way prayers or the Sunday-Sunday medicine. Your pursuit of worldly wealth has eaten away at the fabric of your family. Your life is but a festering cyst masked by the fading fragrance of vainglory.
In my journeys I, the Traveler, have come upon many a weary soul whose eyes reflect the deep darkness in mine. I have seen the tears that ladies have cried, days after their innocence was stifled and ravaged by a raging phallus.
I have heard grown men weep and seen the agony of the gray-haired as their families are emaciated by greed and the despairing scuttle for a plot of land. I have stood in street corners and watched my sisters ply their trade, bartering their bodies to pay their bills. From the hallowed halls of cathedrals to the mundane markets I have seen and still see.
How many times do we reach the end of ourselves and instead of throwing ourselves on the Lord we walk back to the beginning trying to achieve some measure of happiness by ourselves?
I, myself, have been pummeled by dreary days and noxious nights. Life’s woes nearly destroyed my sight. But somehow through the fog I catch the glimpse of a wooden cross. Not the tawdry crucifix on your neck, not a talisman nor a charm but the Triumphant Christ on a cross before the whole world.
I have reached the end of Self-boulevard and I knew I couldn’t turn back. I have torn the mask that plastered my face and tossed my burdens at the foot of the cross.
It was at times like that, at the end of my rope that His voice filters in through the darkness and directs me down the road of righteousness. It is that same voice that calls out LIGHT in the darkness.
When my own filthiness threatened to suffocate me rarefied air from Zion weighty with mercy comes along and fills my lungs with life.
That is why I walk down this path unafraid. That is the reason I tread this road excitedly. For the WAY leads me by Himself.