The Unmarked Path

"Uphold my steps in Your paths, that my footsteps may not slip." Psalm 17:5

I recently spent a weekend out in the wilderness and desert of Joshua Tree National Park for a class in my Masters program. I really did not know what to expect other than some generalized statements about activities like hiking, rock climbing, and rappelling.


I'm use to hiking trails being marked out by color for distance or degree of difficulty. We started out on a sandy trail a little ways from the rocks and I thought that was all the hike was going to be. Then we started to climb over some rocks. The people who were ahead kept going higher and sometimes disappeared from sight. Every time we reached a flat area, the guides took us higher. I kept saying "Are you serious?!".


There were many places where I needed assistance from one of the guys to help me get up to the next boulder. It wasn't apparent as we were climbing just how high we were going because we could not see the end point. Going up was quite a challenge but coming back down was even more of a challenge. From this perspective you could now see how steep the climb was. Many times I wondered if I was really going down the same boulders I just climbed moments earlier because they looked so different.


My assumptions about the hike are much like how we want life to be. We want the path we are supposed to take clearly marked so we know just how far we're going and how difficult (or easy) it will be to finish. But God leads us up an unmarked path where we can only see the few steps ahead so that we have to rely on Him, have faith, and not be able to rely on our own strength or ability to reason.

Years ago I was listening to the mother of my former pastor speak about hope. What struck me in her talk was the mention of what we need to chart our own course when sailing through the waters (emotions) of hopelessness. We need an anchor. To have our "ropes" tied securely to something that is not going to give way. Secure knots that will not unravel. In boating, the ropes are perhaps some of the most important pieces of equipment (I am by no means a sailing expert). You have ropes tied to an anchor so that you will not drift off when you need to remain in the same place, ropes to tie up to a dock so you can move to solid ground and not fall in the water, ropes that are connected to sails so you can travel a charted course.

Going back to the anchor and the rope. See, it spurred me to thought because I found out a few years back that my last name (in Catalan/Menorcan) means "the rope that holds the anchor". That's a very important rope!

So I have a few questions to pose: What have you anchored yourself to?

Is it a relationship or relationships in general?

People and relationships shift over time like a sandbar shifts with the ocean currents.

Is it your career and the success/stature it brings you? Your accomplishments?

In today's job market, how secure is your career or position? How often do we succeed or fail?

Or is it what you've been able to acquire?

Does anything last forever? We're always looking to upgrade to the newest, latest, greatest gadget.

What is the one thing that remains constant? Never changing? Holds the same standards day in and day out? Never changes their opinion or the way they vote? Who never changes sides to prevent getting voted off the island?

-God. Simply, God.

He's the constant in a variable equation. Tie your rope to Him and get anchored.