So much
of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life.
We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we
have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and
all our false loves and we venture forth in our hearts to trace the steps of
the One who said, “follow me” in a way, it means that we stop
pretending that life is better than it is, that we are happier than it is, that
we are happier than we are, that the false selves we present to the world are
really us. We respond to the Haunting, the wooing, the longing for another
life. Pilgrim begins his adventure toward redemption with a twofold turning: a
turning away from attachment and a turning toward desire. He wanted life and so
he stuck his fingers in his ears and ran like a madman (“a fool,” to use Paul’s
term) in search of it. The freedom of heart needed to journey comes in the form
of detachment. As Gerald May writes in Addiction and Grace,
"Detachment
is the word used in spiritual traditions to describe freedom of desire. Not
freedom from desire, but freedom of desire…....An authentic spiritual
understanding of detachment devalues neither desire nor the objects of desire. Instead,
it “aims at correcting one’s own anxious grasping in order to free oneself for
committed relationship to God.” According to Meister Eckhart, detachment
“enkindles the heart, awakens the spirit, stimulates our longings, and shows us
where God is.”
With an
awakened heart, we turn and face the road ahead knowing that no one can take
the trip for us, nor can anyone plan our way.
Ransomed Heart Ministries By John Eldredge
