The Journey of Faith

Faith is always a journey.  We are always moving from somewhere spiritually to somewhere else.  And our journey is directed by Someone Else outside of ourselves.  We may not be aware of where we are -- the desert, after all, is trackless.  On our own, we might easily wander for 40 years and keep going around Mt. Sinai again and again, as did the Israelites.  That is why the spiritual life, without a Guide that we can trust, is no guarantee of safety and protection. 

Many people today seek the spiritual life without a Guide.  Or they will claim that one guide is as good as another.  My students tell me that in the high schools today, Wicca is one of the "religions" that students claim to follow.  Many people say that they are "spiritual" but not "religious."  I guess what that means is that they do not claim any one guide as better than any other.  Having rejected all 'religions as false guides, they stike out on their own to find their own path to peace, joy, and love.

I think what we see from the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures is a pattern:  God gets one person to listen to Him, and then He uses that one person to lead his people forward on the journey of faith.  When men attempt to lead others without first listening to God, we get cults such as those of Jim Jones, Hitler, and Osama Ben Ladin.  God's pattern of leadership is so clear:  in all cases, the men He chooses are not 'natural' leaders, but just the opposite.

Moses was not a good speaker; in fact, he stuttered and he was afraid that people would laugh at him.  Moses knew for sure that God was the Guide and not himself; most of the time, he was afraid of failing because he knew there was nothing he could do for these people enslaved by the Egyptians.  He is always asking God how he is supposed to carry out his mission.  And God never gives him directions or a timetable.  He says only, "I'll be with you."  That's it.  Moses' power is the Presence of God.  Directions comes as he walks the journey.

Our faith is the same; it is a journey, a relationship with our Guide.  Sometimes we do not know we are being led until years later.  As we look back over our lives, we can see the hand of the Guide that we had not seen at the moment we turned to the left or to the right.  But looking back, we are thankful we took the road we did; we can now see how we were being led. 

When Moses asked God for a direct vision of His Glory, the Lord replied that He would place Moses in a cleft of the rock, cause His Goodness to pass in front of the rock, and proclaim His name-Yahweh- in Moses' presence:  ...[I will] cover you with my hand until I have passed by.  Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen (Ex. 33:21-23).

People imagine that faith is the same as "religion."  But it is not; the ten commandments were given to a people who were learning to listen to the God who had brought them forth out of Egypt, out of slavery.  The journey had already begun for them before they began to obey the laws.  We come to obey because we have first come to know the Guide Who is directing our lives, our journey of faith.

As Catholic children of the 50's, we learned the Baltimore Catechism, but it was in prayer, in the quiet moments during the Mass, that we came to know our Guide, the One who had already directed our paths to prayer.  Obedience to 'religion' followed our hearts' knowledge of our Guide.  That is the path that will lead us home.