Relationship

Clarity sometimes comes before the day begins to speak.
In that early hour, when the world has not yet gathered its noise, a belief I had carried for much of my life loosened and held.

I had understood faith as walking a narrow way, like a path along a mountain ridge. On either side was danger. The margin was thin, the ground unforgiving. A wrong step was never casual; it followed a moment when attention slipped. The task was to remain steady, eyes forward, careful not to drift. This was the straight and narrow path—one few find, because it is easier, along the way, to slip off to either side. Over time, this understanding settled into my body. It shaped how I walked. It ordered my steps.

I was walking as I believed one should walk.

But in a season of unrest, a question began to remain where others passed through. How did people walk this same narrow way without the resources I relied on so heavily? Without the words and structures that had ordered my understanding? How did they keep moving forward—eyes fixed ahead on the crown they were told awaited—without the tools I believed were necessary to stay the course?

The question did not accuse.
It waited.

And in that waiting, something else came quietly into alignment—not a new path, but a different way of understanding the walk.

My thoughts turned to Jesus as the Good Shepherd, and to the sheep who follow. They are led. Their movement is not held together by learned behavior alone, but by nearness. The leading is relational before it is behavioral. The path remains true not because the sheep have perfected the walk, but because they stay close to the one who walks before them. He leads beside still waters. He restores and refreshes. The walking continues, even when understanding gives way to trust.

What I had relied on were behaviors shaped by learning.
What I had lost sight of was the relationship that gave those behaviors their meaning.

The walk had never been the problem.

The order had been.

From there, my thoughts turned inward.

What would my relationships with others look like if I treated them the same way? If I relied first on structure rather than presence? If I trusted rules more than closeness? That was never how I loved. Love, as I had lived it, was formed by staying near—by walking together, by responding to one another as the way unfolded.

Why would my relationship with God be different?

When relationship came first, the walking did not disappear. It steadied. It softened. I no longer approached God as one maintaining form, but as one who draws near—like the one who kneels, who wipes His feet with tears, choosing what is better while the need to manage falls quiet.

The path remained.

But it was no longer upheld by behavior alone.

It was held by relationship.