Which Road Will it Be?
“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.”
Have you ever had a random word or phrase come into your mind out of nowhere? And, you literally stop and think, “Where did that come from?” This happened to me this past week. The phrase that popped into my head was “the road less traveled.”
Of course, I immediately googled the phrase and realized that there was a best seller book written with this title, a poem that references this idea, a song with this title recorded by Lauren Alaina, and an album by George Straight entitled with this very phrase! This is all well and good, but I still pondered the phrase wondering what these words had to do with me.
For me, I have learned that when a random thought, song, or scripture comes into my mind, I need to stop and ask God, “What are you trying to say to me?”
I must admit that as much as I have meditated on this phrase and asked God about it, I haven’t received any real divine revelation. In fact, my mind has been flooded with different ideas and opinions of where this phrase could go.
But as I repeated the phrase trying to get some direction, it was then that the above passage of scripture came to me. This passage in Matthew 7 is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus taught many life lessons to help us live our best life.
In our world today, the culture screams for people to be your own person, do your own thing, be who you want to be, etc. But ironically, even though this mindset encourages the idea of being unique, independent, and follow the path of self-discovery, the mentality and pressure of society still says to join the crowd and be like everyone else.
But then there is another gate that is a small one which opens to a narrow road. This is a road that requires us to walk in the same direction, intentionality in our pursuit as we press towards reaching a common prize. It isn’t a road where “self” is the focus, but it is a path that requires us to surrender our lives to Jesus, trusting in Him which is the only way to have forgiveness and eternal life.
We get to decide which road we want to journey on in this life: the road less traveled which leads us to Jesus; or the road that leads to eternal destruction. What road will it be?
