The Freedom to Wander

Sunday, August 9, 2026

Clare

LGBTQIA+ Person of Faith

Quote

“So, if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

~John 8:36 (NRSV)

Devotion

August is wandering season. Vacation time. Road trips with no particular destination. Long evenings when the light stretches out and you’re not quite sure where the day went. There’s a looseness to August that the rest of the year doesn’t quite have. A permission to meander.

I’ve been thinking lately about how much of Queer life is about claiming the freedom to wander. Not wandering as aimlessness but wandering as exploration. Wandering as the refusal to stay on someone else’s prescribed path. For so many of us, coming out wasn’t just about declaring an identity, it was about giving ourselves permission to explore terrain we’d been told was off limits.

When Jesus talks about freedom, he’s not talking about the absence of constraint. He’s talking about something deeper: the freedom to become who you actually are rather than who you’ve been told to be. The freedom to follow your own curiosity, your own questions, your own sense of call. The freedom to take detours and discover things about yourself and about God that you never would have found on the approved route.

The religious establishment always maps out the path to God in meticulous and exacting detail. Stay within these lines. Follow these rules. Don’t color outside the margins. But Jesus kept wandering off the path: eating with the wrong people, breaking Sabbath laws, touching the untouchable. His freedom wasn’t about rebellion for its own sake. It was about refusing to let someone else’s map dictate his relationship with God and with the people God loved.

That same freedom is ours. We don’t need permission to explore our identities, our spirituality, our understanding of what it means to be faithful. The Spirit moves where it wants to move. Sometimes that’s off the beaten path, into territory that makes the gatekeepers nervous. That’s okay. That’s freedom.

Reflection

1.    What paths have you wandered that others told you were off-limits or dangerous?

2.    Where in your life right now are you still waiting for permission to explore or to be fully yourself?

3.    How has your willingness to “wander” brought you closer to God rather than further away?

Action

Wander this week. Take a walk with no destination in mind, drive down a road you’ve never taken, or enjoy an evening with no plans. As you move through space without a fixed route, pay attention to what you notice, what surprises you, what you discover. Let it be a physical prayer about the freedom God offers you.