Soul-deep Grooves (Rom. 15)

I walked the pastures and fields of my youth this week and found myself lost amidst the changes of thirty-plus years. The fields still call to me (although two-thirds no longer belong to my family), gently rolling hills full of solid black cows instead of the familiar brown ones with white faces from my childhood, tall trees I remember as much smaller in height and girth, and a pond surprisingly the same. The corn crib, barn, and chicken house starkly missing from the  landscape like amputated limbs that still feel present in spirit, phantoms my memories. 

The Formation of Grooves

The grooves are there, soul deep, worn paths that take me back to distant days spent in youthful pastimes (like mud pie making and Zebco fishing and puppy chasing and playing in the blanket tents my grandmother built), to gangly teenage years spent with friends (tending my brother after a dog bite, family fish fries with young cousins, playing my flute for the cows), to fleeting college days and brief visits home and picnics in the pasture, to lengthy visits with my own children when they were small because each visit was like moving again. Then there are the more recent years where occasional visits squeezed in between obligations and requirements took over as the kids grew up and schedules and church consumed most weekends that could’ve been free to travel the seemingly terribly distant three hours from Auburn. 

The Grooves Don’t Easily Fade

The groove of a cow trail caught my eye as I roamed across the fields with camera in hand, remembering days long gone while soaking up a beautiful new one. I thought to myself, there’s a blog post in there somewhere, and there is, just maybe not what I had expected and one that came more quickly than anticipated. 

The worn paths have always been there to my recollection, but some cow had to be the first to walk it and others had to follow closely behind, choosing to walk a path already thought out by another, babies following mamas, creatures of habit walking the same path daily until the deep groove is worn through the grass into the dirt, and until the dirt itself seems to hold the memory of countless hooves packing it down. Over time, the groove deepens, gets a little wider,  becomes more pronounced. Some other cow started walking a new parallel trail (maybe an impatient baby), but it is either too new (or didn’t take as well) and it gets absorbed back into the one already there as they fall in line. There is nothing tangible holding the cows on the path, just a desire to get from point A to point B. There is no law forcing cows to walk in the groove. They walk because they are hungry, because they’re in a hurry and it is the path of least resistance, because it is familiar. 

As I read in Romans 15 today I thought about the spiritual grooves of my life, the paths I have walked that were different ones from what had been normal before I began to grow in Christ. Those paths felt unfamiliar, especially at first, and were often uncomfortable, leaving me uneasy as a result. I learned to walk those paths because of the Scriptures I began to read and study and memorize in earnest, wanting so desperately to be pleasing to Christ, wanting to know the mysteries held in them, wanting to know His will for my life. They became the groove of my life, and now they are so worn into the soil of it, its very fabric, and there can be no unwearing, no going down any other trail but the one I am on. 

The things written long ago, as Paul speaks of in verse four, “were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope” (NKJV). Patience implies that troubles will come and that it will be necessary as life moves forward. Patience while we wait for the revealing of the Son, for the resolution of this life. Comfort suggests that there will be sorrows that will come as we walk the paths of this life, that there will be One who will offer it. But hope, that is found now in the Scriptures that I am wearing down into the very groove of my soul. The hope is Christ and glory (Col. 1:27). The hope is that “the God of patience and comfort” will grant us to “be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus” and that we may glorify God, His Father (Rom. 15:5-6). The deep grooves of the path I walk on bring me hope because God is a God of patience and comfort and provides Christ who sends His Spirit to dwell within me as I walk the paths of this life as alien, a stranger in this world.

Romans 15:1-3 continues Paul’s lesson on the law of love from chapter 14, and he speaks of our freedom to give up ourselves and to help bear others’ burdens, and instead of pleasing ourselves,  modeling ourselves after Christ, who bore not only our sins but the reproaches of the ones who should have recognized Him and loved Him worshipfully instead of being the legalistic pleasers of self they were. They too had familiar grooves they had worn deep into the soil of their lives, and they continued to walk the same path after Christ came offer them a much better one. They walked a path they created and wore down so deep they couldn't see a way out of it.

This life will have grooves in it when we leave it, some deeper than others. Some will choose to walk paths repeatedly in ignorance or rebellion or defiance forming grooves that speak of sinful choices, and those grooves will be sorrowful and without hope unless repentance takes place. Some will walk paths that lead straight to God through Christ Jesus our Lord because He called and we heard His voice and responded through His Word daily, finding patience and comfort in the Scriptures given us over and over and over again.

Those grooves will be beautiful much like the cow trails were to me as I walked them again recently. My life has not gone where I thought it would, but the experiences of it are part of me, and I wouldn’t change much of anything at this point because it has gotten me to where I am now and is leading me to where I am going. The grooves are soul deep, and I want them there.