I wrote this song when my twin sons, Will and Parker, were 4 in an attempt to try to capture what I thought parenting would be like. 15 years later, as they walked across the stage graduating from high school as members of the Class of 2017, I realize how spot on it was.
Time flies, so don’t waste one second of the show!
12 years ago, Black Friday took on a whole new meaning for me, one that has nothing to do with shopping, because 12 years ago – on the day after Thanksgiving – my mom had a brain aneurysm which led to her passing (and my brother’s just 20 days later) and I found myself on a road that I’d hoped I would never have to travel.
It’s a road that many of my friends have walked, too. Maybe even you. It’s a dark road where the streetlights are broken and “the feels” are replaced with the chills. For a few of my friends, this year is the year when they are beginning to walk on it, and if I may, I’d like to offer some insight as a sojourner on this road – this path through the valley of the shadow of death.
Think of it as my view from further down the road.
I think I spent a lot of my early time on the road trying to convince myself that I wasn’t actually on the road at all. It’s almost vicious the way my mind would trick me into believing – even for a split-second – that the green minivan on Highway 52 was mom returning home after a last-minute trip to Food Lion or that the phone call way too late in the night was my brother calling to see if my kids had gotten a spanking that day.
If my mind wasn’t trying to deny the road, it seemed others were. “Your mom is in a better place” – meant to somehow encourage me – actually made me feel even worse for being on this road that was the worst place I’d ever been. “It’s all going to be alright” seemed to lose sight of the fact that the road I was on made it all feel so wrong. Turkey didn’t taste the same. Christmas lights didn’t shine as bright. Birthdays, graduations, weddings, births…none of them felt quite right anymore.
This road – this path through the valley of the shadow of death – it’s real, and at the beginning of your journey on it, it’s real intimidating and overwhelming and breathtaking, and you’re not crazy to really hate it.
I love how David described his pace on this road. It gave me a lot of comfort when I realized that he didn’t say “though I sprint through the valley of the shadow of death.”
There’s no running on this road. No skipping or jogging. This road has one speed: slow.
Others around you will struggle with that. They’ll encourage you to move faster (it will sound like “deal with it” or “haven’t you grieved long enough?”), but that’s just because they’re uncomfortable watching you be uncomfortable.
You will find yourself wanting the journey to move faster, because it’s a painful one. No one likes to travel this road, but since you can’t run on it, learn on it instead. I’ve shared with the church I lead that my entire ministry approach changed when I started walking on this road, from the way I preach to how I view the people I’m preaching to.
It’s a long, slow walk, and while I would never want to sound like we should be happy to learn the lessons along the way, I do want to be clear that the lessons we learn on this road may be the most valuable ones we’ll ever learn.
This will sound cliché, but on this road, “if you sit, you’ll quit.”
It doesn’t mean that you can’t take some time to catch your breath, but it does mean that getting you to give up is the only real weapon the enemy of your soul has on this road. More on this in the next section, but the shadows on this road are only there because of the light at the end of it, and as long as you’re moving, he knows the light will grow brighter and the shadows will grow shorter.
His only shot is to get you to stop, and there’s something about sitting on the road that allows the shadows to reach you, and once they do, it’s so hard to break free. Not impossible, just hard. So, in the words of Dory, just keep swimming.
You know what I’ve learned on this road? The value of the word “through.” It is a word that implies not staying, a word that means what feels like the end isn’t, and a word that fills me with hope on the days when – yes, even 12 years later – my chest tightens and it feels like I just got started.
“Through” means that where you and I are today isn’t our final stop, or even where we’ll be tomorrow. There is a destination that we are being led to by a Savior who is more than able to get us where we’re going.
Some will read that and ask, “If he’s all that great, why allow us on the road in the first place? Come on, Paul, couldn’t he have healed your mom and brother, and my ____________ (fill in the blank with your lost loved one)?” Great question, and while I don’t fully understand God’s thought process, I do know this: he hasn’t disappeared or left us alone to stumble along this road. Dark places don’t expose a distant God as much as they reveal a delivering God who is leading us through the valley and to the victory.
[Tweet “Dark places don’t expose a distant God as much as they reveal a delivering God.”]
What does that mean for me and you and everyone else who finds themselves walking on this dark path through the valley of the shadow of death?
[Tweet “Jesus leads us THROUGH the valley and TO the victory.”]
It means that if we keep moving at a pace that allows us to learn about God while being loved by God, we’ll find ourselves further from the confusing first steps that brought more bitter than sweet, and closer to the triumphant final steps into a place filled with the faces of those we’ve said good-bye to sooner than we wanted.
And when we see them, we’ll realize that they knew we’d make it the whole time, because the same Jesus that got them there will have led us there, too.
And that leads me to the most important lesson I’ve learned on this road:
Allow him to do what only he can: lead you, guide you, love you, save you. He’s been down this road before, and his victory assures us of ours. He is more than able to save our souls, and that means that he can be trusted with the pain that tries to crush our souls.
After all, only Jesus was able to turn Black Friday into White as Snow Sunday!
[Tweet “Only Jesus was able to turn Black Friday into White as Snow Sunday!”]
Of all the things that I thought I’d think this Christmas, the most surprising thought happened as we were traveling southbound on I-77 somewhere past Ridgeway and somewhere before Blythewood on our way to Columbia, SC.
That’s when I woke up and realized that I’d nodded off. Maybe it was for a few seconds or a few miles, but there was definitely a moment that my eyes were not on the road! The first thing I thought when I woke up was, “Thank God, I’m not driving,” and the second thing I thought was,
“Oh, God! I’m not driving!!”
My sons are in the process of getting all of their required 60 hours of time behind the wheel as they prepare to trade in the driver permits for licenses, and lately Parker gets the drive down to Columbia and Will gets the drive back. And my nodding off while Parker was driving was a fantastic lesson about the reason behind the coming of Jesus that we’re celebrating this season.
In Christ, God came near, yes. But God isn’t one of those “helicopter” parents who hovers over his children and makes sure that his kids never experience pain or failure. Of course, he’s also not one of the cold, prickly parents who never console a hurting child or take the time to hug good night and say, “I love you.”
And while this analogy will fall woefully short, I fell asleep – even if only briefly – because something in me knew that Parker was okay at the wheel. Think about that from our perspective, and how jacked up our view tends to be of the coming of Jesus on that first Christmas night.
We think that God sent Jesus to be near us in order to ensure that we would never – even for a split-second – have to deal with any kind of choice or responsibility. We sing “Jesus, Take the Wheel” loudly like some kind of bad karaoke simply because we’re tired of driving, when the reality is that God came near to us at Christmas in order to fill us and send us back out into dark and dangerous places at Pentecost.
There will be a day (and it’s coming quickly) when Parker and Will are going to slip into a car behind the wheel and they are going to drive somewhere at some speed for some reason and I won’t be in the car with them. My job is to prepare them for that day, and the more prepared they’ll be then is directly related to how relaxed I am as they drive now.
So many times we sit in a car that isn’t moving and wait for God to move it, but the truth is that He is waiting to lead us, and it’s so much easier for him to do that when the car is moving and we’re pushing the gas. Maturity as followers of Jesus is the difference between Parker driving with me in the car and him driving a car that is behind mine as I lead him where I want him to go. For that to happen, I’ve got to trust that he can actually drive, and God wants to have that trust of us, as well.
[Tweet “As God’s children, we are led by him, not driven by him.”]
Again, this isn’t a slam at Carrie Underwood’s hit song, and it’s not an analogy that will hold up under intense scrutiny, but the Bible reminds us in Romans 8:14 that, as God’s children, we are led by him, not driven by him.
Sometimes, God’s silence says more about our growth than it does his absence. He wants us to be prepared to take our lives anywhere he leads us, and when he can trust us to drive, he’ll be faithful to caravan us into the greatest adventure we could ever imagine.
[Tweet “Sometimes, God’s silence says more about our growth than his absence.”]
At Christmastime, we realize that God came near in order to send us far, and that means that “Oh come, let us adore him” must be followed with “And now, let’s go proclaim him!”
Crank up your car, because God has given you some keys, and there’s a car he trusts you to drive. He’s with you, even if sometimes it seems like he isn’t.
