The High Road

Taking the high road. So, what does that exactly mean? 

I once came across a challenge somewhere that if I read I Corinth 13 every day for 30 days it would change my life. Desiring an engine overhaul, I took up the challenge reading it prayerfully for a month straight. At the end of 30 days I looked around waiting for the supernova it to hit. Nothing. Days and weeks passed, still nothing.

Thankfully it didn’t deter me from my love of the Bible and I continued to read it in my un-orthodoxed methods of course (flipping it open somewhere in the New Testament and drinking in passages). And it always encouraged me, taught me, something, and made me hunger for more. 

I was simultaneously learning other new ways to live and beginning to change old behavior and habits. I began doing little things anonymously, mostly for the feel-good factor. Feeding someone’s parking meter, picking up someone else’s litter, or leaving dog bags beside the empty dispenser. At the time, you never could have convinced me that it was those things that were the very stepping stones that lead to the high road, but in hind sight they were the starter seeds.

I still hungered for God’s deeper understanding, so I took to buying bible study booklets and doing them on my graveyard shift at work. I still thought being a Christian was a bit sissy and was afraid of being judged so kept it quiet. I remained a Closet Christian for many years but the fruit in my life was becoming evident.

Then things got a little more challenging.  Were my reactions holy and Godly when I was genuinely being treated unfairly?  It’s amazing what you see you when you’re in observe-mode, when God extends grace to see.

Then the challenges got a little steeper. What about my thinking?  The broiler room of my actions and reactions? Was I being passive aggressive, asking in my most pleasant voice but seething underneath?  Secretly thinking better or worse of myself or others for one reason or the other? Was I ready to let that go?

I once had neighbors who worked real hard at trying to make things miserable enough hoping I would move. But it didn’t work. I only saw their antics as an opportunity to take the high road.  When they set up their backyard fire pit in the direct line of vision from my kitchen window, I simply close the curtains and went about my business.  Or when their grade schoolers were poking sticks through the one knot hole in the fence antagonizing my doggie daycare, I simply put the dogs in the house. The next day I plugged the hole from my side and continued with my doggie daycare. I refused to allowing anger, fear, resentment, competition, and such rule the day. That is taking the high road.

When I started replacing what I could change – my attitude – and pray about things I couldn’t change, I seemed to be cultivating richer farmland in my heart for God to work with me. He could trust me to carry out some of his bidding and what grander life could one expect here on earth?

I’m doing an interesting project for a dementia facility. I’m writing brief bios of residents to hang at their door for staff, volunteers and themselves to know a little bit more about their lives.  And like all God’s work, I get more out of it than they do. I have written many whose Hobbies & Interests section dwarfs their Career & Vocation section, or some equally are packed. I believe, because, they made all those high road decisions all through their life that lead them to that meaningful, abundant, joyful life. And then there are others I’ve written others that I had to go up a couple of point sizes or creatively repeat myself to fill the space. 

So getting back to reading I Corinthians 13 for 30 days. Did it change my life?

You bet.  In spades.