I've always been a big fan of the poem The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. I guess the more I experience life, I find it really is all about the choices we make. As believers, we have an intimate relationship with the sovereign God of eternity. This same God has the amazing characteristic of being omniscient--all knowing. He sees through all time and space, which enables Him to have the only true perspective on life and choices.During the past few years, I have been faced with numerous life changing events: the death of my father, moving back closer to my hometown, looking into buying a house, etc.--not to mention all of the "littler" decisions to be made. There is a point at which it can become very overwhelming. Makes me want to throw up my hands and say, "Whatever!" That's when I'm faced with the real choice.
As believers in Jesus Christ, we are faced with the choice that supercedes all other decisions. This one, although simple, is much harder to flesh out. Every day, with every decision, we have a choice to worry about it, or allow God to be God and let Him handle it (which, by the way, is what we like to call worship). When we worry, we remove Jesus as our focus with whatever we may be worrying about at the time; and realistically, we still can't do anything about it. But when we worship, He remains as our focus, and we can lift the situation up to the ONLY One who CAN do something about it.
Jeremiah 6:16 says, "This is what the Lord says: 'Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.' "
If we trust and worship...we can rest. We can rest in another promise from Jeremiah:
" 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek man and find me when you seek me with all your heart.' " (29:11)
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.
-Robert Frost
