The Path
One of my favorite poems is from Robert Frost:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We long to make this a simple poem about choosing the less traveled path, but the poem actually tells us the paths are the same. Only later, he looks back and see where his choice has taken him in life.
Each day that we live we face forks of decision. We have to make the choice about whom we serve. Which path to take. I have often wished that once the choice were made that it would never have to be made again. Unfortunately, Satan prowls like around like a hungry lion and on the very day you think you no longer have to make a choice he snatches you from your complacency and lures you directly to his path.
We have many choices to make each day but I can think of no bigger decision that I have to make than the one in which I decide to follow Christ or follow Satan. When my kids get in a spot of trouble, I tell them that the biggest issue is not deciding whom to date, what to wear, join in or not, but rather whom to serve. The biggest decision of their day is deciding whom they will serve. Once that decision is made then all the other life decisions have a foundation on which to rely. All other decisions are easier to make.
Our youth are faced with countless decisions each day. False information is piped into their heads through many avenues. If they do not know which path to take, then they will often follow the easiest, the coolest, the least resistant. It is up to us to help them find that path as they grow and mature. We are to be the aroma, the letter, the living stone. Life is a complex journey, but it can be devastating if we (they) are on the wrong path.
II Cor. 2:15
For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
II Cor. 3:1-3
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some, letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter, written in our hearts, known and read by all men; being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
I Pet. 2:4-5
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
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