The Broad Road

While on vacation I noticed what appeared to be a well maintained trail alongside the canal adjacent to our hotel.  I decided to check it out and bright and early the next morning I set out on foot. When I arrived at the “trail head” low and behold I was greeted by a sign that read:

” NO TRESPASSING. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.”                         

Well alrighty then. I decide that it must be a private road not a public trail.  Glancing across the canal I spy a weedy, much less used path which I conclude is the public trail. It looked as though few people rarely if ever used it.  I look back to the nice, broad road in front of me, and I think, “What the heck” and start down the road. About twenty five yards out I meet a fellow and his loyal canine companion returning from their morning walk down the road neither one of us are supposed to be on and I stop and ask myself, “what am I doing?”  I turn right around and I head the other direction.

Crossing the sidewalk over the canal I hike on down to the scruffy, narrow trail and take my walk.  All the while I see person after person on the broad road clearly marked “No Trespassing”.  I meet no one on the “legal” trail.  After a while the “illegal” road comes to a dead end at a locked gate.  My trail takes a turn and after a time brings me to a nice road with a sidewalk.

It made me sad, because it is a reflection of  life on earth.

In Matthew 7:13 Jesus Christ tells us, “Broad is the road that leads to destruction.”  

Destruction.  That’s a harsh word. Translated: NO TRESSPASSING! Violators will be PROSECUTED!   We’ve been properly warned about that road with the dead end, and I mean dead end and yet we all, yes, you too, say “what the heck” and head down it anyway.  Some wake up in time and turn around.  Most spend their whole life on it.  I  wasted a fair amount of my life there and  did the things I was warned not to do and ended up empty and lost in my soul.  Ugh.

The good news is that I made a decision. That is all it takes.  A decision to turn around and get off that road, to repent.   The word repent means to change direction after all.  I chose a different direction and I chose somebody other than the world around me to follow.   I am following a new leader.  Jesus the Christ.   

Jesus said that he is the only way to God and “narrow is the way that leads to life and few people find it. (Matthew 7:14).  That makes me sad.   

Simple directions, but not easy to follow.  A change of direction suggested.

 A change of heart required.  ©

 

Be joy filled always,

Christine Davis