Walking the Sacred Road

Our first night in Rome, we wandered.

It wasn’t supposed to rain. The weather app promised a 0% chance. Instead, the skies opened, and we found ourselves standing under a tree with a group of strangers, all trying to stay dry. We had hoped to see the Colosseum at dusk. Instead, we received something unexpected.

The rain cleared the crowds.

As the storm passed, we found ourselves walking up an old cobblestone road on the edge of the Palatine Hill. At first it seemed like a dead end, but the winding path kept drawing us forward until we arrived at our first church in Rome, Chiesa di San Bonaventura al Palatino.

Compared to the grand churches that would follow, it was simple. Quiet. Peaceful. After a long day of travel, it felt like a gift.

One of our goals while in Rome was to step into the churches we encounter as we roamed the streets and pause to pray. Yes, we’ve visited the famous sites. We’ve encountered some of the tourist things. But the moments that have stayed with me are the quiet ones—lighting a candle, sitting in silence, praying alongside centuries of pilgrims who have come seeking peace, healing, wholeness, forgiveness, guidance, and hope.

Again and again, I have been reminded of the vastness of God’s family and the beauty of a faith that stretches across languages, cultures, and generations. Our faith does not belong to one people, nation or time.

As we left the church and began walking back down the hill, I noticed a street sign.

Via Sacra.

Sacred Road.

I stopped and looked back.

The setting sun was shining through an ancient archway, casting a golden light across an almost empty road. In that moment, I sensed God calling me back to the sacred road.

Not a road in Rome.

My road.

The path of following Jesus.

Somewhere along the way, I think I have become too comfortable. Too settled into routines. Too concerned with expectations and voices around me. I have spent a lot of time listening to others tell me who I should be and what kind of pastor I should become.

Without realizing it, I had started following other guides instead of my true Guide.

What is the sacred road?

For me, it is the path we choose to walk with Jesus.

The sacred road isn’t about having every turn mapped out. It is about paying attention to the One who walks beside us. Somewhere along the way, I had begun measuring my steps by other people’s expectations. Was I doing enough? Leading enough? Creating enough? I listened to voices telling me what a successful pastor should be, what a faithful Christian should accomplish, what the next season of ministry should look like. None of those voices were necessarily bad. But when they become louder than the voice of Christ, they can slowly pull us away from the path we long to walk.

The problem wasn’t that I had stopped believing or stopped serving. The problem was that I had stopped paying attention. Life had become full of responsibilities, deadlines, expectations, and routines. I was moving quickly, checking boxes, doing good work, but not always noticing where Jesus was leading. The pace itself had become a guide. Productivity had become a guide. Other people’s expectations had become a guide.

Standing on the Via Sacra, I began to wonder if I had wandered from the sacred road not through rebellion, but through distraction.

I think that’s why the crowds in Rome caught my attention.

Rome is filled with tour groups. At times the crowds are overwhelming. People move shoulder to shoulder, listening through earpieces that never quite stay in place, trying to keep sight of their guide’s raised flag, umbrella, or walking stick.

More than once I found myself accidentally following the wrong group.

It’s surprisingly easy to do.

And perhaps that is true spiritually as well.

We can become so focused on keeping up, staying with the crowd, doing what everyone else is doing, that we lose sight of the One we are actually meant to follow.

Later in the week, I woke before sunrise and returned to walk the Via Sacra again.

At six o’clock in the morning, the crowds were gone. The road belonged to the birds, the flowers, the soft light of dawn, and a handful of early risers.

I walked slowly.

Without the noise and distractions, I noticed things I had missed before. The scent of flowers. The sounds of the city waking up. The deep peace that comes when there is nowhere else to be.

And then I noticed something else.

Along the wall leading to the church were the Stations of the Cross.

The first time I had walked this road, I never saw them.

Now, in the quiet, I stopped at each station. I prayed. I lingered. I gazed at the images depicting Jesus’ journey to the cross.

At every station, I found myself asking the same question:

“God, what do you want from me now?”

Not five years from now.

Not after my sabbatical.

Now.

As I prayed, another question began to emerge:

“What are our next steps together?”

Those questions have continued to follow me—not only through Rome, but also through Assisi, and now as I prepare to spend time at Ghost Ranch.

Perhaps that is what pilgrimage does.

It does not always give us answers.

Sometimes it simply creates enough silence for us to hear the questions God has been asking all along.

Maybe that is why the Via Sacra captured my imagination.

The ancient Roman road was once filled with crowds, processions, and people moving from one place to another. Yet on that quiet morning, it became something else for me. A reminder that the sacred road is not found only in Rome. It can be found wherever we choose to walk attentively with God.

And maybe the sacred road is not a destination at all.

Maybe it is the daily choice to keep our eyes on Jesus, to walk slowly enough to notice what we missed before, and to trust that our true Guide is still leading us forward.

May my eyes stay on Jesus, my true Guide and Companion.

My sabbatical started fast.

I had one day to shift from work to a 13-hour road trip. Bill and I left at 4:45 a.m. to drive to Oklahoma City for my niece’s wedding. And somewhere along Interstate 44, it became clear that this road trip was naming both the life I’ve been living… and the life God longs for me to live instead.

The unhurried life.

Bill and I move at very different paces. We always have.

When we’re talking, there are times I feel like I can’t get the words from my head to my mouth fast enough. Bill, on the other hand, takes his time answering a question, forming his words, thinking through his next move. After thirty years together, I still find myself breathing deeply sometimes, resisting the urge to push him to get to the point faster.

Lately, though, I’ve noticed something else about him that has really challenged me.

He’s driving slower.

And on our road trip to OKC, it really showed up.

We took turns driving. When Bill drove, he barely drove the speed limit. He stayed in the slow lane and just took his time. When I drove? I drove at least five miles over the speed limit. And when we reached the toll turnpike outside Tulsa and I saw the speed limit sign read 80 mph, I shouted “WHOO HOO!” loud enough to startle Bill — and yes, I pushed that pedal to 85.

Always moving.

Always trying to get there faster.

I like arriving early. I like checking things off the list. I like efficiency. Productivity. Momentum.

But somewhere between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, I realized something uncomfortable:

A hurried life is not the life Jesus lived.

And maybe it isn’t the life Jesus invites us to live either.

On a last-minute whim before leaving home, I bought the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.

Just wow.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this book.

There’s so much wisdom in it that I want to share — and I probably will, little by little.

What’s the rush, right?

One line especially has stayed with me:
“Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life.”

I keep turning that sentence over in my mind because, if I’m honest, I have spent much of my life hurrying.

Not always physically. Sometimes the hurry lives deeper than the calendar.

It lives in the mind that cannot settle.
The spirit that feels guilty for resting.
The quiet fear that if we stop moving, something important might fall apart.

And yet Jesus never seemed hurried.

He walked.

That language matters.

Jesus says, “Follow me.”
Not “Catch up.”
Not “Move faster.”

Follow.

To follow Jesus is to become his apprentice — to learn not only what he taught, but how he lived. And the life of Jesus was marked by an unhurried presence. He stopped for people. He noticed things. He withdrew to lonely places to pray. He lingered at tables. He walked dusty roads slowly enough to encounter the hurting and overlooked along the way.

Love, joy, and peace sit at the center of Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God.

And all three are incompatible with hurry.

Hurry steals our attention. And attention may now be our scarcest resource — even more than time or money.

We live in an age of constant noise: iPhones, Wi-Fi, notifications, breaking news, endless scrolling, fast lanes, faster expectations. We were promised that all our technology and labor-saving devices would give us more time, but somehow we have less.

Once, leisure was considered a sign of wealth.
Now busyness has become the badge we wear to prove our importance.

Gandhi once said,
“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”

I think Jesus knew that.

Because hurry does more than exhaust us. It slowly reshapes us.

Hurry kills relationships because love takes time.

Hurry kills joy because joy requires attention to the goodness of the moment.

Hurry kills gratitude because gratitude cannot survive in a distracted heart.

Hurry even kills wisdom, because wisdom is born slowly — in quietness, contemplation, and deep listening.

So perhaps the deeper question underneath all of this is not simply:
“How do I slow down?”

But:
Who am I becoming in this hurried life?

This sabbatical, I want to practice a different way of being.

To walk instead of run.

To pay attention.

To not be afraid of moments that look “unproductive.”

To sit quietly long enough for my soul to catch up with my body.

I’m still processing so much of this. My thoughts aren’t fully organized yet.

But maybe that’s part of slowing down too.

Not rushing clarity.
Not forcing conclusions.
Not hurrying past what God is trying to show me.

After all… there’s no rush.

The wedding was beautiful. Time with our kids was a true gift. Laughing with family. Sitting around tables with food and new friends. I took in every single moment and relished. Rested in it. Didn’t rush one moment.

The drive home was different. We stopped often. I drove in the slow lane. Oh I was tempted, often to speed past that annoying semi. Small steps.

There are seasons in life when we are invited to step away—not to escape, but to pay attention.

This sabbatical is one of those seasons for me.

From April 27 to July 27, 2026, I am setting aside the usual rhythms of ministry to make space for renewal. Time to walk more slowly. To listen more deeply. To rediscover creativity, joy, and the quiet ways God meets us in the ordinary.

I will be traveling to places both familiar and new—walking desert paths, wandering old streets, sitting in sacred spaces, and returning again and again to the simple practices of prayer, play, and presence.

This blog is a place to share that journey.

Not polished reflections or final answers, but glimpses along the way—moments of beauty, questions that linger, small things that might otherwise be missed.

Holy noticing.

You are invited to walk alongside me.

To pause.
To look again.
To notice where God might be meeting you, too.

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