Narrow Path or Dead End?

It’s been another day of adventure following Jesus on the narrow path. I always enjoy returning to the Pilgrim’s Desk—a place of prayer, of listening, of waiting on the Holy Spirit after I’ve been out in the world.

“What should we include in the journal notes today, Lord?”

So here goes.

One of my stops along the Way was coffee with a trusted sister in Christ. Like me, she is a pilgrim. And like me, she sometimes feels the loneliness of living in a world where most people—even other Christians—do not seem to speak the same language.

That feels strange.

We are all reading from the same Book.

It’s not like my former profession, where some followed Freud, others Adler, still others Rogers or Glasser. Different theories, different frameworks—that was expected. But here, we are all supposed to be following Jesus.

Or at least, that’s what we say.

I imagine an orchestra with Jesus as the conductor. Every musician has a different instrument, a different part, but all are reading from the same sheet of music and watching the same conductor.

When it’s time to play a passage on wisdom, we turn together to the same place. We recognize together that the way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to counsel.

There is harmony.

But something feels off.

Many of our brothers and sisters in the institutional church see pilgrims like us as outliers—perhaps even renegades—people following what is right in our own interpretation. They encourage us to come back under the roof, where sound doctrine is taught and where a multitude of wise elders can correct our misunderstandings.

“If you are wise, you will listen.”

And that is true.

But what if the counsel we are asked to follow stands in tension with the Word itself? What if what is called good is not good? What if what is called sin is no longer treated as sin?

Then what?

It begins to feel as if we are no longer reading from the same sheet of music. Each group plays what they believe is correct, yet what reaches the ear is not harmony—but something closer to a cacophony.

Not even a joyful noise.

I understand that the narrow path is a metaphor for righteous living, and that each believer walks it in their own season and at their own pace. Not every pilgrim stands at the same place along the Way.

But still, the question lingers.

If one path leads to life, and another leads to a dead end…
and both travelers believe they are seeing clearly…

who is to say which is which?

So I return to the quiet again.

To prayer. To the Word. To listen for the voice of the Shepherd above all others.

Because the narrow path is not found by argument or consensus—
but by following Him.

_______

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. Matthew 7:13–14 (NKJV)