(c) Eva Marie Everson
In Closing
God waits for those who will love him and who hunger for things too excellent to be understood. In my need of Christ I have gone there all too frequently. It is a terra cognita, a knowable land, but its approaches are a bridge of yearning. A togetherness won by longing. But the path of this yearning can end in cul-de-sacs of disappointment . . . The ultimate redeeming hunger is to be changed to the glory of his image—to be conformed to his image.[i]
Calvin Miller
There are scores of questions in the Bible specifically asked by God. I am constantly amazed at the times while reading the Scriptures I find “new” ones. Ones I’d not seen before. Or, having seen, simply hadn’t caught the question mark. The possibility of taking the questions from God into the labyrinth for time without end is great. Not just because of the number of questions but because we can often answer them differently depending on where we are in life. For example, the question asked of Hagar—”Where did you come from and where are you going?”—could be answered one way five years ago and another way five years from now. “What do you want me to do for you?” is another question that can be answered differently depending on life’s circumstances.
This book was meant to simply get you started. My prayer is that you will not stop in your search of God’s Holy Writ. That you will always look for the question marks. That you will dig into the stories behind the queries, that you will not be willing to read them at face value. That you will place yourself in the shoes of those who heard from our wonderful heavenly Father, from His messengers, from His Son. And that you will then look into the mirror and see how He turns His questions toward you. With that, I pray as you walk along the paths—the Path of Silence, the Path of Memory, the Path of Questioning, and the Path of Prayer—you will grow more intimately in love with your Savior.
I also pray that in journaling the answers to the questions, you will continue to grow in your faith, that your walk with Him will grow in purpose, and that you will become all you were meant to be in Christ Jesus.
I pray you will invite another to join you, whether you walk the paths together and share, or you walk the paths alone and merely nod at each other along the way.
And if I may be so bold, I pray you will invite others to join you spend time within each question as a study group, and your journaling along the path will encourage you to share the parts you can and leave the deepest with God.
In 2020, during the newness and the fearfulness of what we call “the pandemic,” I went on Facebook each weekday morning, clicked on the GO LIVE button, and began to share scriptures and readings of encouragement and hope. Hundreds joined me. One morning, I came across a poem I decided to share. I hadn’t really read it top to bottom, but the first few lines drew me in and, as the time to “go live” neared, I thought, This is good.
The one and only time I wept during these live sessions was that morning. I’d like to leave you with the words of that poem as well as with two sections of Scripture that mean a lot to me in hopes that all three will move you as they do me and they will encourage you never to walk alone … because you are not alone.
Thank you for joining me along the third path.
Let’s keep walking and journey on.
I Stand by the Door
Samuel Moor Shoemaker
1893 – 1963
I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.
The door is the most important door in the world—
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There is no use my going way inside and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where the door ought to be.
They creep along the wall like blind men,
With outstretched, groping hands,
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it.
So I stand by the door.
The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door—the door to God.
The most important thing that any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands
And put it on the latch—the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man’s own touch.
Men die outside the door, as starving beggars die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter.
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live on the other side of it—live because they have not found it.
Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find Him.
So I stand by the door.
Go in great saints; go all the way in—
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics.
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit those inner rooms
And know the depths and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in.
Sometimes venture in a little farther,
But my place seems closer to the opening.
So I stand by the door.
There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way in and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of His house devour them;
For God is so very great and asks all of us.
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia
And want to get out. ‘Let me out!’ they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more.
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled.
For the old life, they have seen too much:
One taste of God and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.
The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving—preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door
But would like to run away. So for them too,
I stand by the door.
I admire the people who go way in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not yet even found the door.
Or the people who want to run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply and stay in too long
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear Him and know He is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there too.
Where? Outside the door—
Thousands of them. Millions of them.
But—more important for me—
One of them, two of them, ten of them.
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
“I had rather be a door-keeper. . .”
So I stand by the door.[ii]
To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
Jude 24, 25
Peace be with you.
3 John 1:15
[i] Miller, Calvin, Into the Depths of God, 226.
[ii] http://www.thejaywalker.com/pages/shoemaker.html
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