Part I
No doubt each of us has come to certain crossroads in our lives where we had to decide which way we were going. There are career crossroads, relationship crossroads, financial crossroads, and spiritual crossroads, to name a few. Hardly a day passes that we are not confronted with some decision that may affect that day or week or month, but the choices we make that truly cause a different path for us to take are the ones I want to talk about. When your life is at a crossroad, do you know it—and how do you know it? And how do you make the right choice, especially when neither choice is bad or evil, but you have to choose between two goods?
You may have read or even studied this famous poem by Robert Frost in high school or college. It begins:
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, 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.
Life is full of pivotal points—times when we are faced with decisions and choices that make a difference in our lives. This poem captures one of those pivotal moments and reminds us that the choices we make at critical junctures in our lifetime have enormous impact on where we will go, who we will be, what we will do, and, for those of us who are disciples of Jesus Christ, how effective our lives will be for his glory.
Robert Frost expresses this quandary of life’s crossroads in this simple but beautiful poem. He expresses the feelings we’ve had many times as we were faced with decisions. And in looking back, we wonder, did we make the right choice?
Have you ever thought about decisions you made that set your life’s course and wondered where you would be now if you had made a different one? Frost gives vent to these shared musings: “I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence . . .” In other words, I’ll always wonder what life would had been like had I chosen the other road.
Every person faces these pivotal life-moments, but for those of us who are believers, are we left, like Frost, to simply survey the prospects of the roads in front of us and make our best guess? He decides to choose the road less traveled, but was that the best choice? What guided him in that decision, just some inner curiosity? Is that the best we can do?
Let’s see what the Bible has to say about life at the crossroads, because we need to make sure that we’re not just taking our best guess through life. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we have his power to guide us through Life at the Crossroads.
I want to talk about some of the mistakes we can make when we face life at the crossroads. And one of those is to overlook the importance of what we might call “small choices, minor decisions.” Those choices we consider small add up, and they impact our lives more than we would think.
For example, we choose each day whether we will spend quality time in God’s Word, in prayer, and in spiritual disciplines, like memorizing scripture. If you make the wrong choice to skip that time one day, it may not have any serious long-term consequences. But if you keep making that small wrong choice day after day, it will soon add up to a choice with significant negative consequences in your life.
You may choose to allow a relationship to begin in your life, which you know will not be good for you, but you think it’s no big deal and you can handle it. However, that small choice opens the door for that relationship to develop and it could eventually drag you down and cause you lots of heartache.
An old song says, “Little Things Mean a Lot,” and it’s also true that “Little Choices Mean a Lot.” Your everyday life is made up of little choices: Do I buy those shoes, even though they are not in my budget? Do I skip church today because I’m a little tired? Do I take time to call a friend who is hurting? Do I share my faith with a co-worker when I have an opportunity? Do I eat that chocolate cheesecake which I don’t need? Do I make myself exercise today or not?
Those are examples of the little crossroads we face each day, and while one day of poor choices may not take us down the wrong road, repeated days of poor everyday choices will affect our health, our finances, our spiritual growth—you name it. Making good decisions at these daily crossroads of life requires discipline. In Proverbs 5, we see the lament of a person who refused discipline.
At the end of your life you will groan, when your flesh and body are spent. You will say, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! I have come to the brink of utter ruin. (Prov. 5:11-12, 14)
Like Frost’s poem, the person who refuses discipline will be “telling this with a sigh” because those poor everyday choices can truly lead to utter ruin, physically, emotionally and spiritually. So, as you face your everyday choices today, remember that how you choose will make all the difference.
What guidance do we have from God’s Word when we’re facing Life at the Crossroads? Consider this passage from Jeremiah 6:
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.”
In Robert Frost’s poem, as he is deciding which fork in the road he should take, he writes “long I stood and looked down one as far as I could . . .” He tried to see the end from the beginning. I understand that desire, don’t you? Every time we’re faced with a choice, if we could see the end from the beginning, we would make much better choices. Often the reason we miss the right way is because we don’t stand at the crossroads and look.
Instead we go with our emotions, with our feelings, with our gut, and with our momentary desires. How many Christians have stood at that marriage crossroads and made a choice to marry a person who was not God’s choice? Why would they make such a decision? Because they didn’t look. They didn’t ask what this marriage would be like down the road. They looked with their earthly eyes instead of Forever Eyes, and thought they could beat the odds.
I was talking recently with a young woman who married a Muslim man, even though she is a Christian. He is a good man and she is not abused in any way, but she knows it was not the right choice. I asked her why she made that choice, and she said, “I was blinded by being in love.” She didn’t stand at that crossroad and look for the ancient path, the good way.
I can tell stories from my own life of making poor choices, but I don’t want to repeat those mistakes. We must stand at the crossroads and look. We must ask God for an eternal perspective—what will this look like in eternity? All of us like instant gratification, and that grass on the other side just looks so green sometimes. But standing at the crossroads and looking past the temporary to see the eternal consequences will prevent us from making some of those poor choices that we now regretfully have to live with.
Jeremiah says we are to ask for the ancient paths. Ancient paths? You mean, do it the old-fashioned way? You mean, do what my mother says I should do? You mean, make choices that aren’t cool? In our modern world, ancient paths are not highly respected or desired. Outdated and narrow would be the words many would use to describe these ancient paths. Why would we want to choose ancient paths?
Because the ancient paths are God’s paths. He is the eternal God, the Ancient of Days he is called, and his paths are ancient. They don’t change because they don’t need to change. They are true and good for all time. They are the paths that have proven to be the good paths.
So, ask for the ancient paths. Literally pray, “God, show me the ancient paths as I face this crossroads. Show me your way.” We are often inclined to let the world dictate our paths—to do what everyone else is doing, to choose the “cool” way. Its allurements make rash promises that they can never fulfill. They look good, but oh, they lead you astray. Ask for the ancient paths.
In addition to asking God, seek godly counselors, and ask them for the ancient paths. Ask where the good way is. Sometimes you need to ask for directions. Proverbs 15:22 says, “Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Don’t be too proud to ask for guidance from godly people who will have a better perspective than yours.
As I think back over my own life, I see how foolish I was at some very critical crossroads of my own life because I simply wasn’t asking for the good way and I wasn’t letting anyone give me advice or counsel. While I refuse to live in regret and believe firmly in God’s sovereignty in my life, I fully recognize the foolish choices I knowingly made and how I lost years of effectiveness for Jesus because of them.
So, if you’re facing a crossroad in life, stand and look, ask for the ancient paths, ask for the good way, and seek godly counsel. Don’t rush headlong into a wrong choice that you will regret. It’s true that God can take our poor choices, our wrong decisions, and help us to recover and even use them for his glory. But how much smarter, how much easier, how much more would it bring glory to God if instead we chose the good way, the ancient paths, and avoided the consequences of making a wrong choice.