Lighthouses, Rahab and Obedience

It was my lighthouse, my prayer chamber, although I wouldn’t have called it praying then. I could sit on the north shore and on a clear day you could see the outline of Boston. Sorting out questions and hopes and dreams. It was my quiet place to go. My secret escape from a house of roommates and the lively chaos of those first years out of college.

It was becoming harder to quiet the whispers of my soul. The awakening of a faith I had not abandoned, but gently set aside in my teen years. The shedding of layers that were making me into someone I was not. A beacon to me of something more.

Each journey there, I knew more freedom. Building. Until one day, I knew it was time. And I left the coast for a land locked state in the middle of the country. Of course it was not that simple. And yet it was. Pursuing an MBA gave the crazy notion some substance to those asking.

And I remember that season, some twenty years ago. And I think, I have never been so obedient. Obedient to a whisper I didn’t understand. Obedient to mystery. Obedient to a life-giving relationship that was inviting a journey to freedom.

Obedient before the word had baggage and religion to weigh it down.

“I run in the path of your commands for you have set my heart free.”

Years go by and obedience becomes more tricky. So many voices saying what it should look like. I know it’s just the one voice I want to hear. The one that talks about running in the path of commands. Not restrictive nor legislative.  Active. Running. The one that knows intimately of true freedom, a safe place for my soul. Obedient to more than a list or expectations.

“By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.”

How can you not marvel at this story? She was a prostitute. She hid the spies. She lied to the authorities. And she is considered obedient.

Obedience to something bigger. Something revolutionary. Something worth risking it all.

And I wonder what that kind of obedience looks like in my everyday life? In the “getting kids up and off to school, doing another load of laundry, figuring out what to have for dinner” kind of life. When it seems easier to be obedient to a do list and tasks, than to a voice I can’t always hear.

I live in those questions.

And on the days when lighthouses and Rahabs seem a distant memory, the questions make trustworthy companions. And together we seek this glorious kind of obedience.

Linking up with Diana Trautwein’s new conversation, Living the Questions

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