Desperate to find something that worked, I eventually began to realize that some of what I believed—even some things I thought were good—was holding me back.
Sometimes it is harder to let go of something we have held dearly for years than it is to let go of something we already know is hurting us.
One book that helped me along the way was C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity. I am not advocating Christianity here, nor am I trying to evangelize. What stayed with me was simply an illustration Lewis used about commitment.
I was driving late one evening to my niece’s volleyball game a couple of states away. Her team had made it to the championship, and they had worked hard to get there. Somewhere along that drive, I was listening to the audio-book when Lewis described Christianity as a house.
There was a hallway, with doors leading into different rooms.
Lewis was talking about different expressions of Christian faith, but the image immediately became something larger for me.
I realized how much of my own life I had spent standing in hallways.
I would look at one door, then another. I would study them, compare them, question them and worry about what might be behind each one.
What if I picked the wrong door?
What if another one was better?
What if I committed myself and later discovered I had made a mistake?
My desire to make the right decision became so strong that I often made no decision at all.The search for certainty can become its own form of paralysis.
I stayed in the hallway.
And there is something very important about a hallway:
A hallway is not where anyone actually lives.
You can spend years thinking about what might be inside a room without ever experiencing what the room has to offer.
That was what I had done spiritually.
I had read. I had listened. I had compared. I had considered. I had questioned.
But I had rarely committed myself long enough to actually practice anything.
Then another part of Lewis’s image struck me.
Choosing a room did not mean I had to lock the door behind me forever.
If I discovered I had entered the wrong room, I could leave it.
That idea hit me like cold water on my face.
I had been treating every decision as though it were irreversible.
It wasn’t.
I did not need absolute certainty before taking a step. I only needed enough willingness to walk through a door and see what happened.
That changed something for me.
I began to understand commitment less as a declaration about the rest of my life and more as something I could make today.
I could practice today.
I could pray today.
I could meditate today.
I could listen today.
I could try to live according to principles that seemed to lead toward greater peace, love, patience and generosity today.
Tomorrow I could make the decision again.
That does not mean commitment should be taken lightly. A halfhearted practice rarely produces much of anything. Whatever door I entered, I had to actually go inside. I had to sit down. Look around. Participate. Give it some time.
But the commitment did not have to be enormous.
I discovered that the power greater than myself that I was beginning to trust did not seem to demand perfection from me. A little willingness, sincerely offered, often seemed to produce far more than I expected.
A little effort.
A little openness.
A little courage.
And sometimes, a surprising amount of peace.
Looking back, I had no idea how much my constant deliberation—my insistence on finding a sure thing before committing myself—had cost me.
All those years I thought I was being careful.
Maybe sometimes I was simply afraid.
A hallway is not where anyone actually lives.
And while I stood there trying to decide which door promised certainty, I may have been missing the grace, love and growth that could only be experienced after walking through one.