For When You Feel You Lack Direction From God
How do you know you’re making the right choice? When do you go running towards the voice you think you’re hearing?
The two boys waved to one another from across the street, each in their fall jackets to protect against the crisp air that blew orange and red leaves down the sidewalk. One boy played with a red ball while the other raked piles of dead leaves to jump into. Each laughed and breathed in the musk of the leaves permeating the air. The pumpkins and gourds that adorned their neighbors porches filled the young boy’s minds with excitement. Next week they would carry pillow sacks and pails to collect candy.
“Son?”
The voice was distant, but the wind carried the sound into the ear of the boy with the red ball. Dropping the ball, he rushed to the door of his house and walked inside.
“Dad?”
The young boy raced from the kitchen to the living room scanning the usual spots for his father. The leather recliner. The island where his dad prepared meat to grill.
“Dad?”
No answer. The boy considered heading back outside to play, but remembered his father’s office upstairs. Taking two steps at a time the boy bounded up the flight of stairs then opened the door to his father’s office. Inside, his father sat hunched over paperwork.
“Dad! Dad! I heard you calling. Did you need something?”
The father turned in his chair and motioned for the boy to come sit in his lap. He took a moment to stroke the young boy’s hair and then — without warning — backhanded the child.
“I didn’t call you!” He roared as tears flooded the child’s face. “This is what my voice sounds like! You’d best learn it well so you don’t go running off to the wrong places or getting lured into dangerous alleys. Learn it and learn it well, boy!”
Meanwhile, Across the Street
“Son?”
The other boy had just jumped into a pile of tan, red, and orange leaves when he heard his father calling. Popping out of the leaves and kicking large swaths while racing to the door, he saw the boy from across the street holding his red ball as tears streamed down his face. What happened to him? he wondered. Pushing the thought aside, he opened the door and walked inside.
“Dad?”
Like the other boy, he ran from room to room looking for his father and calling his name. Remembering his father’s office, the boy burst through the door panting.
““Dad! Dad! I heard you calling. Did you need something?”
The boy’s father turned in his chair and motioned for the boy to come sit in his lap. The child happily obliged and when he settled in his dad’s lap, his father hugged him and tussled the boy’s hair.
“Son, I didn’t call you. But I’m so happy you’re listening for my voice and come running even when you think I call. And since you’re here, do you want to play?”
Meanwhile, at a cafe in Austin, Texas
“You see, Ben…” My best friend Josh bites into his gyro and follows up with a swig of ice tea. “I think most of us think of God like the first father who backhands his child… always waiting for us to choose the wrong path. We believe when we come running — even when we’re uncertain it’s him — there’s punishment waiting.”
My eyes wide I run the story he’s told me over and over in my mind. Over the weeks and years that pass the narrative digs deeper in my guts. I share the story with friends wondering if they should quit their jobs, enter recovery, or whether they’re making the right choice. Then one day I hear, “Son?”
The voice is so distant and far that I’m not sure I’m hearing correctly.
But I go running towards it anyway.
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