Tag: matthew-7

My journey from a young adult to now has involved many turns, curves, pains, peaks, and valleys. Many of my early choices were enough to make bystanders dizzy. I would strongly recommend against anyone following the highways to nowhere that cross our straight-and-narrow path. I was taught and contentedly started down the narrow path. However, as a youthful adult, I began testing the exit ramps on those wide-open highways; they appeared so fun and fast. Many highways cross the narrow pathway towards heaven, and those on them seem to be having a great time. In my youthful years, the narrow path felt slow, lonely, and dull, while the highway travelers were going so fast they seemed to have time for loneliness, which looked so appealing in those lonely moments.

Although I was not hitchhiking, those highway travelers would occasionally stop with great big smiles on their faces and exuberantly offer me highway rides, and every once in a while I would accept short rides but found myself quickly missing the peace, comfort, contentment, and safety the straight and narrow path offers; however, the highway rush enticed me, so I started putting my thumb up now and then to catch that thrill. After a while, those highway rides became longer and faster; my adrenaline surged! Eventually, I was no longer catching rides; I was driving, navigating those highways, and with so many others rapidly going nowhere fast, almost completely losing sight of that straight and narrow path I once cherished. Without realizing it, I became the big-smile driver in my speedy convertible, offering rides to travelers on that straight and narrow path, spending years with the wind blowing through my hair, speeding down highways to nowhere; I looked like I was going somewhere fast, when I was actually going nowhere at all. Occasionally, I would reflect on the peace and comfort I once knew and was surprised when I found myself feeling trapped and remembering the comfort of that ole pathway; yet, if I thought too profoundly about it, I would stop reflecting and floor the gas pedal.

Periodically, when I offered rides to someone on that straight and narrow path with words of wisdom, they would say no to even the shortest ride, reminding me of my years traveling that path. Their declines began piquing my curiosity and helped me reflect and realize how confused and lost I had become. I found myself admiring their rejection of my offer and started realizing the highways were truly taking me nowhere and becoming less intriguing; I started longing for the peace, comfort, tranquility, and surety I once had on that narrow pathway.

Finally, I realized getting off those entangled spaghetti highways was necessary; the loneliness I felt on the path I once walked was not gone, just hidden for a while; only now it was coupled with emptiness, an emptiness I’d never felt before. My realization meant a dramatic change, but I knew it was the right choice; I needed to get off those highways to become whole again. I started my departure with a commitment to change direction, to exit those highways and never look back, to return to that narrow path to heaven again; so, like never before, I studied and learned more about that narrow pathway that takes us to heaven and its eternal reward. The more I learned, the more I questioned why I allowed myself to accept that first highway ride, for with God we have direction, purpose, and a goal; without God, we have emptiness with no hope of eternal life.

I now have great admiration for those few who have consistently said no to those Highway offers and stayed true to that narrow path for most, if not all, of their lives. My choices taught me that my example and everyone’s examples have tremendous trickle-down effects that influence others. If we truly care about family, friends, or people, we need to be mindful of our influence and do our best to serve God as a Christ-like example so that anyone following our lead will realize we are going somewhere, that we are on a path that leads to a heavenly home with our Creator where there are no tears, sickness, or sorrow. And that Highway, well, the highway eventually ends in eternal darkness with no hope. Utter darkness! Jesus is the light, and without God we are empty.

I am thankful for God’s grace and the path he set for us all to follow. For it is by God’s grace, through our obedient faith in hearing, believing, repenting, confessing, and being baptized for the forgiveness of our sins and living faithfully thereafter, that we can walk the eternal pathway that makes us whole and takes us to eternal life with Jesus.

• Proverbs 3:5-7
• Proverbs 4:26-27
• Matthew 3:3
• John 14:1–31
• Revelation 21:4
• Luke 13:24
• Proverbs 14:12
• Proverbs 16:25
• Romans 10:17
• Mark 16:16
• Acts 17:30
• Romans 10:9-10
• Acts 2:38
• Acts 22:16
• 1 Peter 3:21
• Matthew 5:16
• 1 Timothy 4:12
• Titus 2:7
• James 5:19-20

God First!