Walk With Me (20 page)

After Peter and Celeste had surveyed the orchard and saw how pleasant it was, they decided to stay a little while. They found a small house to settle in, and soon they began to worry about what they would eat and what they would wear. Celeste wanted to have the latest fashions like all the other travelers, and Peter thought it would be good to try all the different foods in the orchard.

The disillusionment they had experienced with each other on the Plains of Distance remained. But there was so much to occupy them—Peter working long hours at his job and Celeste fixing up the house—that they weren’t bothered they saw little of each other. Celeste found plenty of friends and met with them to talk about the guidebook. Peter joined those who were making plans for the new gathering hut and started spending his free time there, proud to be involved in such significant work.

Although Peter and Celeste were still partners, there was little evidence for it except that they lived in the same house and wore their tattered cords of commitment.

“So is everything fine?” Peter would ask.

“Couldn’t be better,” Celeste would say.

The longer they remained in the orchard, the more their love of its pleasures grew, choking out their love for the King. They no longer thought of going back to the Servant’s path. “We need to stay here for the little travelers. That’s our top responsibility. They need to have the very best.”

They did tell the little travelers about the King, but the little travelers preferred playing on the orchard sports teams rather than going to the gathering hut. As the months went on, Peter and
Celeste felt the strain of earning enough money to pay for all they wanted. They were richer than they ever had been since becoming partners, but they never seemed to have enough. They were often short-tempered with each other, and as a result they suffered painful attacks of the burrs. And like other travelers in the orchard, when their unkind words were not sufficient they sometimes fought each other with their clubs. Worst of all, as their love for the King diminished, so did their love for each other. Their hearts became cold.

Then one day a guide in an old, long, oilskin coat and broad-brimmed leather hat came to the orchard. He announced he was setting up a tent, and every night he would give a talk about the King. Many travelers paid no attention to him; others told him they listened only to guides approved by the leaders of the gathering hut. However, Peter was curious, since the orchard did not get many traveling guides, and he decided to go the first night.

Heavenly Treasure stood in front of the small assembly and cleared his throat. “My message tonight may seem strange for such a well-fed crowd, but I believe it is what the King wants you to hear.”

He took his old copy of the guidebook and began to read. “Is anyone thirsty? Come and drink—even if you have no money! Come, take your choice of wine or milk—it’s all free! Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength? Why pay for food that does you no good? Listen to me, and you will eat what is good. You will enjoy the finest food. Come to me with your ears wide open. Listen, and you will find life.”

He looked out at the crowd. “You may think you are well-fed, living here in the Orchard of Earthly Delights. But I can see how
hungry you really are. You work so hard to feed yourselves, but you are skinny in your souls. Listen to me: call on the King. He wants to hear from you. Turn from doing things that don’t please Him. Don’t even think about doing something you know is wrong. Tell Him you are sorry, and He will be lavish in His forgiveness to you, for He is full of mercy.”

The King’s words that Heavenly Treasure had read cut through Peter like a two-edged sword. When he got home, he looked in the mirror and saw how much thinner he was than when he had first come to the orchard. Then he looked at Celeste and the little travelers. They too were undernourished. Although there was plenty of earthly food in the orchard, it didn’t feed their souls or produce the King’s fruit. Their hearts were starving.

The next night Peter brought the family with him to hear the guide.

“Tonight,” Heavenly Treasure said, opening his guidebook, “I’d like to give you another message from the King: ‘I see what you’ve done, your hard, hard work, your refusal to quit. I know you can’t stomach evil, that you weed out apostolic pretenders. I know your persistence, your courage in my cause, that you never wear out.’”

Celeste whispered to Peter, “I don’t see why people are upset about this guide’s message. He is saying some nice things about us.”

Heavenly Treasure went on reading. “But you walked away from your first love—why? What’s going on with you, anyway? Do you have any idea how far you’ve fallen? A Lucifer fall! Turn back! Recover your dear, early love. No time to waste, for I’m well on my way to removing your light from the golden circle.”

Celeste shifted on the bench and folded her arms. “Who does
he think he is, coming here and judging us like that? Doesn’t he know we are building the biggest gathering hut?”

Heavenly Treasure wasn’t finished. He turned to another part of the guidebook. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried Me and for forty years they saw what I did … See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living King. But encourage one another daily as long as it is called today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.”

He raised his eyes from the guidebook and looked out on the crowd. “I do not know the condition of your hearts. But I know that your willingness to pause from your work and to focus on the King can be the beginning of a renewed faithfulness in your lives.”

Peter looked over at Celeste, hoping that the King’s word would cut through the hardness in her heart. But she remained sitting with her arms folded and with a scowl on her face.

“You need to be discerning of those you listen, to for the guidebook says that false teachers will come, and being greedy, they will exploit you with made-up stories,” Heavenly Treasure told his audience. “However, I want you to remember: ‘There’s nothing to these people—they’re dried-up fountains, storm-scattered clouds, headed for a black hole in hell. They are loudmouths, full of hot air, but still they’re dangerous.’”

Some of the travelers began to jeer at Heavenly Treasure. Others said this was exactly what people on the other side of the orchard needed to hear, and Heavenly Treasure should take his tent over there.

“I think he may be right,” Peter said to Celeste. “We have no time for the King, no time for each other. And have you noticed how much thinner we are than when we first came to the orchard, even though there is plenty of food here? The little travelers no longer remember what it was like to travel on the King’s path, and you and I have forgotten all about the Highlands and how much we wanted to reach them.”

As Celeste listened to Peter, she became alarmed. It was one thing to listen to the guide, and quite another to think of leaving the orchard and again taking up their journey. “That was just a fantasy.” Celeste shook her head. “Maybe super travelers can make the journey, but we are just ordinary people. We have responsibilities—we just can’t walk off. Think of the gathering hut and how it needs you.”

“We don’t have to be super travelers to make the journey to the King’s City. He gives us the strength and power to walk on the path. I think we should talk to Him about what He wants us to do.”

A flicker of guilt passed through Celeste. Although she spent a lot of time talking about the King, she hardly spoke to Him anymore. Then she recovered. “Go ahead, but I know what my answer is. If you want to go off and follow that crazy-looking guide, be my guest. I know I can serve the King just as well right here.”

The next day, the orchard buzzed with gossip about what Heavenly Treasure had said. Some people began to question Indulgent and Smooth Talk, wondering if their guide credentials were in order. Instead of answering them, the two guides accused Heavenly Treasure of stirring up the people with unpleasant words and ordered him out of the orchard. When Peter heard that, he
realized that if he and Celeste stayed any longer, they would wither away. But he didn’t know how he could lead his family out of the orchard. That evening, he went down to the basement and found his old guidebook. He spent all night reading it, and stopped when he came to these words of the Servant: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the King’s City … but all things are possible with the King.” Peter took comfort from that. Even if he didn’t know how to leave the orchard, he could trust the King to do it.

Peter was tempted to command Celeste to follow him out of the orchard, but he remembered their argument at the split path. To love Celeste meant he couldn’t lord authority over her. He needed to serve her just as the Servant King had come to serve and give His life. Peter decided that from then on, instead of going to the gathering hut to meet with Indulgent and Smooth Talk every night, he would stay home to help Celeste with the little travelers. He brought the garbage to the fire dump before Celeste had to remind him, and he volunteered to wash the clothes. Every day he asked the King to show Celeste how thin she was, and how the little travelers were developing greedy pouts. And he often quietly sang one of the King’s songs she had taught him:

One night as Peter sang, Celeste gave him a strange look. Then tears came to her eyes as she remembered the love she once had for the King. He had given her so many good and perfect gifts, and He had always comforted her when the way was hard. Then she thought of how the Servant had loved her so much He had sacrificed His life so she could have a full, whole life. She knew she didn’t want to stop following Him. With a quiet voice, she spoke to Peter. “Soon after I left Slouching City, I met a guide who told me to keep my heart and mind set on the King’s City. I had died with the Servant, and He was now my life. I think I have forgotten that. As wonderful as our life is in the orchard, it’s not the same as traveling to the King’s City.”

“You’re right,” Peter said. “There is so much more than this. What we have here is only a shadow of what is to come.”

“I’m sorry I lost sight of that. Can we go back and walk on the King’s path together?”

“Oh, Celeste, that would make me so happy.”

Celeste smiled back. “Me too.”

The little travelers were sorry to leave the entertainments of the orchard behind, but Peter and Celeste promised they would have plenty of adventures on the journey to the King’s City. Peter and Celeste sold all their possessions and packed their bags. Then
the family said goodbye to all their friends and walked slowly up to the ridge where Heavenly Treasure was waiting. “Are you the only ones who are leaving the orchard?”

“I’m afraid so,” Peter said. “We tried to talk others into joining us. Some said there were too many dangers and difficulties on the journey. Others didn’t see how they could survive without the provisions of the orchard.”

The guide sighed. “Many travelers want to serve both the King and money. But the Servant pointed out that this is impossible, like someone who tries to work for two bosses at the same time. You can only be devoted to one. Traveling to the King’s City is not a weekend job; it’s a full-time occupation.”

“I’m glad to be going to the King’s City,” Celeste said, “but is the orchard really as bad as you say? Didn’t the King create everything in it so we could enjoy it?”

“I have heard of your frankness from other guides.” Heavenly Treasure smiled. “Yes, the orchard is the King’s and everything in it, but people have turned it into an idol. The guidebook warns us, ‘Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him.’ The world offers us cravings we can never satisfy, but the King offers life forever. Which would you rather have?”

“So we have to give up all the pleasures of the orchard on the way to the King’s City?” Celeste asked.

“Like much on the journey, it is not always a question of one
thing or the other, but keeping things in their proper place. The Servant turned water into wine to keep a celebration going, and He went to parties with people who were not traveling to the King’s City. Many travelers have forgotten that the King has given them gifts to enjoy on the journey. Many of them,” he turned to Peter, “come from your village.”