I have a picture in my mind of what my birth must have looked like.

I envision the radiant and glorious Being that is God, forming me up and gently placing me in my mother’s womb, turning me around three times, removing the blindfold, and, on March 8, 1971, whispering into my ear: “Now, find your way home.”

My life continues to be a series of adventures between my arrival in this strange, beautiful land and God’s house, a succession of realizations that “this, too, is not yet home.” But there is something in me that just will not give up. I simply cannot quit. 

My 3:00 a.m. voice nags at me about it from time to time—tonight being one of them. I know: I am tragically flawed, hopelessly lost. Why can’t I get it right? 

“But what if,” God whispers back, “What if I made you that way on purpose?”

And in a still small voice that carries the deepest love and most profound hope He whispers: “Be good at it.”

‘Be good at being lost?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“Be good at being flawed?” I press, doubtfully.

“Yes.”

I ponder this. What if the wandering lostness is the point? The being flawed is the point? Perhaps all those people who appear to take all the right turns and have all the correct answers are equally lost inside but nobody wants to be the guy who admits it and stops to ask for directions. 

“Don’t be that guy,” He says. “Own it! I put my likeness in you so that you would recognize me. I wove into your DNA a homing device so you would feel the need to keep coming. I gave you free will so you could choose the right path, knowing that you could easily lose your way. But I also made you strong and courageous, intelligent and teachable, fierce and determined. You are discovering fear and humility, love and forgiveness, wisdom and joy. Just. Keep. Swimming!” 

We both laugh at this one.

“But here’s the thing, Abba,” I push back. “I am a Gentile who believes in Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah, but I do not call myself a Christian. The expression of my faith looks increasingly Jewish, but Jewish I am not. I am standing in the middle with no real place to call home.”

A memory comes drifting in, me sitting and talking with my rabbi one Shabbat after service.

“Can I ask?” Rabbi says. “Why do you want to go to seminary?”

The question surprises me. 

“Doesn’t everybody? I mean, if they could, wouldn’t everybody want to know more, as much as they possibly could?”

He shakes his head slowly, even sadly. 

“No. Everybody does not want that. Most people do not.”

I am learning just how painfully right Rabbi is. These days I find myself increasingly alone as a believer. It makes Christians jumpy to talk about Torah and mitzvot, feasts and Shabbat. The name Yeshua makes Jews understandably uneasy given the way the world has packaged Jesus. Yet both are missing something vital to God’s perfect plan for mankind—in this life and the life to come. We are supposed to be one family. His family. One magnificent, unified light keeping back the darkness. But we are divided. Fractured.

“You are standing in the middle.” God says.  “You are standing on the bridge Yeshua built between heaven and earth, Jew and Gentile. You are on your way home.”

In the cold, dark, middle-of-night, Yeshua lobs two Scripture verses my way, preceded by a faint, “Pssst!”

The first:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. How narrow is the gate and difficult the way that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matt. 7:13-14, TLV).

And the second is like it:

“I call the heavens and the earth to witness about you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life . . . ” (Deut. 30:19, TLV).

Miraculously, through my half-sleep, I catch them both. I am comforted. Only when I admit that I am flawed can I receive His help. Only when I confess I am lost am I able to stop and ask for direction. The Way is not impossible with His Spirit, though it is often unpopular. It may be the road less traveled, but as Robert Frost reminds us, choosing it could make all the difference.

Photo by Sandra Seitamaa on Unsplash