The bible says in Psalms 66 that we are squeezed through a thin place and burdened to eventually be delivered through into a spacious one. I was meditating about this the other day and began to think about the way a child is born and how they need to go through a tiny channel where much pain and pressure is experienced by both parties that are directly involved in the process.
As chaotic as this process can often be the amazing thing is that it is this very passage through the narrow path that is actually responsible for stimulating and activating in the new born all that they will require in order to thrive in this new spacious place they come into called life.
I wonder how many times many of us instead of staying present and continuing to go through this natural and organic process within the narrow path instead choose to bypass it altogether and opt for a voluntary cesarean section. I also wonder if this is why Jesus said that narrow was the way and few would find it? I wonder also if this is why so few of us find our way into our hearts and instead choose to live from our minds where we are given the false feeling of being in control, like a voluntary C-section does, yet like this artificial way of delivery we then need the help of others to be stimulated every time we choose to resign ourselves? I wonder if this is the way most of us come to faith and that is why for us this spiritual journey so often feels artificial, irrelevant, and the by-product of a shortcut?
It may be that today you too feel that you are being squeezed in the same way that an orange or a lemon are squeezed. It may be that what you are facing is painful and outright daunting and scary. Yet in the midst of this I want to invite you to consider with me that the reason that an orange and a lemon are squeezed is so that others can taste the richness and goodness they contain within them. Without this process all they are is just a fruit decorating a tree for a short space of time instead of having the opportunity of passing the vitality and well being they contain within onto others.
Remember – In the Kingdom many are called (Born) but it is few that are chosen (picked and squeezed for the sake of others)
-pablo-
Photo by Sandra Lundy
