When Way Closes...

For me, it seems in life I'm guided just as much from what is pushing me into the future as what is pulling me into the future. Philippians 1.6 has a thread of that thought running in it. The following is from Paker Palmer in his book, Let Your Life Speak

If I were ever to discover a new direction, I thought, it would be at Pendle Hill, a community rooted in prayer, study, and a vision of human possibility. But when I arrived and started sharing my vocational quandary, people responded with a traditional Quaker counsel that, despite their good intentions, left me even more discouraged. “Have faith,” they said, “and way will open.”

“I have faith,” I thought to myself. “What I don’t have is time to wait for ‘way’ to open. I’m approaching middle age at warp speed, and I have yet to find a vocational path that feels right. The only way that’s opened so far is the wrong way.”

After a few months of deepening frustration, I took my troubles to an older Quaker woman well known for her thoughtfulness and candor. “Ruth,” I said, “people keep telling me that ‘way will open.’ Well, I sit in the silence, I pray, I listen for my calling, but way is not opening. I’ve been trying to find my vocation for a long time, and I still don’t have the foggiest idea of what I’m meant to do. Way may open for other people, but it’s sure not opening for me.”

Ruth’s reply was a model of Quaker plain-speaking. “I’m a birthright Friend,” she said somberly, “and in sixty-plus years of living, way has never opened in front of me.” She paused, and I started sinking into despair. Was this wise woman telling me that the Quaker concept of God’s guidance was a hoax?

Then she spoke again, this time with a grin. “But a lot of way has closed behind me, and that’s had the same guiding effect.”

Ruth’s honesty gave me a new way to look at my vocational journey, and my experience has long since confirmed the lesson she taught me that day: there is as much guidance in what does not and cannot happen in my life as there is in what can and does – maybe more.