Shovel the driveway of the Lord

Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight a path for God.
Every valley shall be filled,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low,
and the crooked shall be made straight,
and the rough ways made smooth;
and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.
— Luke 3. 4-6

This may mean something as grand as building a highway; but it is also something as simple as shoveling the driveway. Which I just spent half a day doing. In places where it snows, you dig out your sidewalk and driveway for two reasons: so you can get out, and so others can get in. A shoveled driveway is a thing of beauty.

The prophet’s cry is a plea for justice in this world where greed and the misuse of power oppress and exploit people and create “rough” and “crooked” places in society. But this social (and even cosmic) transformation can come about only when we also undergo an inner transformation. So we prepare a way within ourselves. We shovel the driveway of our own hearts so God can get in. It’s not a matter of “doing more stuff.” It’s a matter of removing stuff, pushing aside all the things we think we have to do and think and have and experience, so we can be present and available and accessible to God. Unlike shoveling the physical driveway, this means being still.

God can hardly climb into our cluttered minds and hearts with all the stuff piled up in the dooryard. We’re so busy, so subservient to external authorities and inner bosses, so tethered to calendars and to do lists, so burdened by expectations, that we are hardly free to simply allow God to live in us and grow and shine in us. So the first thing we do is to clear a path. Stop. Sit down. Be still. Push aside all your thoughts and ideas and beliefs and worries. You can have them; just clear a way though them.

Make time every day, even if just for a few minutes each morning, to clear a path for the Divine Presence to enter your consciousness. Just clear away some time with nothing in it, and sit and admire the clearing. God is a wanderer, and can’t resist a cleared sidewalk.


Deep Blessings,
Pastor Steve


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Copyright © 2009
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight(at)hotmail.com