The Map that God Made

My search traffic intrigues me--so much so that I've started a separate blog just to answer the questions I find in my stats. One of the big questions in my mind is always what people were looking for when they typed in those words, and whether or not they found it on my blog.

On this blog, a large percentage of my search traffic comes from questions about Catholic marriage and divorce, and although I have a post called "Catholic Divorce" and another one called "The Truth about Catholic Marriage", I always suspect that those visitors don't find what they're looking for. The language in those search strings always seems to suggest that they're looking for a loophole. Somehow, for instance, I don't think the person searching for "when can Catholics get divorced" is really looking for guidance.

Far be it from me to sound critical. I'd be lying if I said that I'd never flipped open the Catechism in hopes of finding justification or permission for the choice I already wanted to make (and you wouldn't believe me anyway, would you?). But I think that when we do that, we're missing the point, that we've already skipped over an important step. After all, didn't God lay down the law for our benefit? And if so, then isn't "Are you going to let me do what I want to do?" the wrong question? Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to consult God first, to find out what He thinks is going to work, than to figure out what we want, get poised on the edge of action, and then check to see whether or not it's okay? Wouldn't it make more sense, in short, to look at the directions before we got lost?

If we accept that God created us and knows us and wants what's best for us and knows what it is, then that means more than accepting that, however much we might not like it, we have to let go of some of our own goals--it means formulating those goals with the guidance we've been provided in mind. On the surface, it might sound like one of those "easier said than done" things, but in practice, I suspect that it would be easier than the way most of us live now, because we wouldn't get so far down those paths that are ultimately cut off.

It seems to me--and I certainly don't pretend to know another person's heart based on what he's typed into a search engine, so maybe I'm projecting my own weaknesses--that most of us tend to look on God's laws as lines at the boundaries of our lives: so long as we don't cross them, we can do whatever we want in that wide open field inside the lines. And maybe to some degree that's true, but I begin to suspect that we're cheating ourselves when we think that way, that God is offering us a detailed, brightly colored topographical map that shows us where all the good stuff is and how to get there--not just the most direct route, but how to find the peaceful valleys and the cool streams even when we've wandered off into the brambles and dark woods--and we can't get our focus off the one big danger sign at the edge of the cliff long enough to see it. Our eyes turn toward that heavy black line and we think, "As long as I don't go over there, I should be okay." And maybe we will. But shouldn't we be going for something a little more than "okay"?