We're Not Lost
Before the days of pervasive GPS, when driving to new destinations I would often get lost. It wasn’t that I had a poor sense of direction, rather, my stubbornness precluded me from admitting I was lost.
So I’d drive around and around, certain the next turn would lead to the promised location. Much to the chagrin of my traveling companions.
“Why don’t we stop and ask for directions?”
There’s no need … we’re not lost. We’re just about there.
Famous last words.
I’m not sure what prevented me asking for help - perhaps a need to be right or an even stronger revulsion of being proven wrong. But whenever we’d eventually stop for directions, the situation became far more pleasant. And the journey’s end far less distant.
The same is true with advancing on a spiritual path.
It’s one thing to believe we know the way, but stubbornly refusing assistance despite the lack of anticipated signposts is quite another.
The hardest part of the journey is not the path and its seeming circuitousness. It’s the willingness to admit, “I don’t know the way, and I need help.”
To do that requires overcoming reluctance to give up control and cede authority to one who knows better. It’s a tough pill to swallow - one our ego, the penultimate driver, retches up immediately.
Yet we need only look at the barren landscape through which we’ve been tirelessly traveling to realize there must be a better way. Not one filled with yet another billboard proclaiming this will make you happy.
More money, a healthier body, and better relationships will not bring us the peace we desire. But acknowledging we’ve been pursuing the wrong goals and have gotten lost along the way instantly puts us on the right track. With a new driver. One who knows THE way.
All we need do is request that assistance. As we read in A Course in Miracles:
If you have made it a habit to ask for help when and where you can, you can be confident that wisdom will be given you when you need it. (M-29.5)
Join me in Thursday’s class where we’ll explore asking for help in a way that leads to immediate peace. And much more enjoyable car trips. I look forward to seeing you then.