Category: The Journey

The Journey: The Road Less Traveled

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How do you want to be remembered? Boil it down to one sentence – what you would like people to say about you?

Why don’t you write that down in a journal or your planner, or put it in the Notes app on your phone.

Make it a goal.

Often we wander through life thinking things will turn out the way we want while living in a way that prevents that. The road you take in life determines your destination, both literally and metaphorically. You won’t get to New York by taking the road to Atlanta. Nor will you live a life of character while taking the path of sin and compromise. So if you really do have an image of what you’d like to have said about you, are you living in a way to make that become a reality?

If a person’s goal was to be on the Fortune 500 list there would be many steps to take to achieve that: education, training, starting your business, making sound decisions for your company, hiring the right people, and keeping up to date in your field. If you set out to accessories-adult-blur-935943become National Teacher of the Year that would require development as well. It would mean getting the proper education and training. It would also require development in specific areas: classroom management and organizational skills, understanding children and learning styles, getting continuing education and National Board certification, and mastering the dynamics of being a highly contributing, highly respected part of a faculty.

Likewise, if your goal is to be a godly mom, a faithful servant of the Father, a shining light for Christ in your company, or whatever, it doesn’t just happen. It starts with a choice: the choice of committing to Christ above all things. That is followed by more intentional choices including studying God’s Word, pursuing mentoring or training, and taking any other particular steps that would lead you to become the woman you hope to be. It would mean choosing a different path in life, one that would lead people to say of you, “She was a worshipper of God and her heart was open to the Lord,” as scripture says of Lydia in Acts 16:14, or “She was always doing good works and acts of charity,” as Luke says of Dorcas in Acts 9:36, or “I commend her to you. She is a servant of the church and a benefactor of many,” as Paul said of Phoebe in Romans 16:1-2.

The following line by Robert Frost may be one of the most well-known lines of poetry of any American author, and it has been interpreted by many.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

As we think today of our life, our goals and wishes, it would serve us well to recall this brief line of poetry and to ask ourselves some questions.

In light of what I wrote down a few minutes ago about how I’d like to be remembered, am I on the path that would lead to that being said about me?

If I want a Godly, noble, upright outcome, then am I choosing the path that leads to that?

Is the path I am currently taking today preparing me for what I want to become?

Am I on the path I am today because it is the well-traveled path and I can’t shake the insecure neediness of being like everyone else?

Am I too fearful to choose the path “less traveled by?”

Am I willing to try a better path starting today?

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Frost was correct. The path we are on does make all the difference. God’s word said the same thing hundreds of years before Frost did. It says:

Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua 24:15 ESV

          There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.                      Proverbs 14:12 ESV

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Matthew 7:13-14 NIV

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Today we have a choice. We can choose to follow along with other sheep happily wandering around the pasture with no direction and no leadership. This is a well-worn, wide path. Or we can choose to follow the Shepherd closely, staying right at His side, listening to His every word, obeying His every command, and making choices that lead us to the lofty goal we desire. It won’t happen in a day, a month, or even a year. But we will find ourselves growing toward that goal of godliness, holiness, and wisdom year by year. So here is the choice:

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Deuteronomy 30:19-20 NIV

What do you choose? What will be said of you when you come to the end of your path of life? Will you take the narrow way, the road less traveled? It will make all the difference.

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The Journey: Learning to Yield

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Teenage Driver!

That term strikes fear in the hearts of most moms of junior high schoolers. They see the child before them and cannot fathom that child behind the wheel. But before those moms can blink twice it seems, they find themselves in the passenger seat beside an eager 15-year-old. While mom is praying in fear, most first time drivers have the “I got this!” attitude going. After all, what’s all the fuss about. Mash the gas. Stop at stop signs. “I’ve driven tons of times on the PS3,” they declare.

But when reality starts settling in for them, they realize its not always as easy as it had seemed with a game controller in hand rather than the steering wheel of a 1 ton vehicle.

One of the most challenging things for young drivers is learning to yield. A stop sign is definitive: see it, do it. But a yield sign is ambiguous: see it and make split second judgment calls. A yield sign offers you a choice and carries with it a responsibility. It involves a quick and weighty decision. Lives hang in the balance if it is ignored or misjudged. Even moderately large cities have high-speed interstate highways that present young drivers with practice in yielding – practice that involves risk and reward. 

Just as yielding while merging onto a highway is a skill learned and developed over time and with maturity, so is yielding spiritually. Our first spiritual yielding is to His call to “Come follow me,” just as He called the apostles He walked with throughout Judea and Galilee. Little by little we learn to yield spiritually.

We yield our logic to pursue faith.

We yield our bodily desires and inclinations to become His temples on earth.

We yield our way and choose to do things His way.

We yield our weariness in order to watch and pray when He prompts.

We yield our fears to be ambassadors for the King to an unappreicative people.

We yield our rights to ourselves, and throw ourselves on the goodwill of the Father who loves us unconditionally.

We yield our hopes and dreams to accept His plan.

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Scripture offers up these directives on yielding:

Yield yourself to the Lord.

“Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the Lord and come to his sanctuary.” (2 Chronicles 30:8 ESV)

Don’t yield to anything that would hinder the gospel.

“Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” (Galatians 2:4-5 ESV)

Do not yield to unrighteousness / Yield to righteousness.

“Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God…. 19 …for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.” (Romans 6:13 & 19 KJV)

We become the servant of the one we yield to.

“Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (Romans 6:16 KJV)

So as you drive down the road this afternoon, with or without a teen driver chauffeuring you, allow those bright, caution yellow Yield signs to be a spiritual reminder to yield your ways to Him every moment, every day. 

“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” (Romans 12:1-2)

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The Journey: Walk in His Shoes

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Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 5:1-2

Once I had children, this verse became a powerful incentive for me.

I read it one peaceful morning as my babies were sleeping. My husband’s work boots sat across the room beside the door. As I read this verse, the boots caught my eye, and I flashed back to the night before with our 18-month-old climbing into Daddy’s boots and vintage-shoes-old-bootstrying to walk. It was a sweet picture. He was stumbly and slow and didn’t get very far, but he wanted to be like Daddy.

That’s what the Christian journey is. It’s just a matter of stepping out as Jesus would and getting up again when we fail to walk like Jesus.

When we are first saved and do this, our steps are faltering and slow. We stumble a lot and mess up often. But we love Him and we want to be like Him, and so we get back up and try to take a few more teetering steps. We lurch forward and face plant again, but once again get up and haltingly keep trying to walk like Jesus.  The shoes may feel too big at first. We get tripped up by the strange feeling of this new walk. We feel like all we can do is stumble. And it hurts when we fall. But we are not called to be perfect; we are called to be an imitator of Christ!

What we find is that we don’t stay a 2-year-old Christian any more than my children stayed 2-year-olds. We grow up in Christ. The walk becomes more natural.

We become an 8-year-old that can scuffle through the house in Jesus’ boots without falling so much.

We grow to be a 14-year-old in Christ whose feet fit perfectly in our Father’s shoes, and we only fall when we face obstacles beyond our abilities.

We mature to be the eager 24-year-old who barges into the mission field with energy and confidence in our Father’s shoes, but occasionally lets our ego lead us into failure.

And one day we hope to become the 76-year-old that may have faltering physical knees but has the spiritual foundation that makes imitating Christ in their every step not even seem like imitating Christ; they have walked in His shoes so long, that the shoes seem like their very own!

Whose shoes are you walking in?

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