Travelin’ by Faith
We had a job delivering into Montreal, Canada and we knew as soon as we dropped the freight we were heading to our next pickup which was in Saint Laurent, Quebec. There are two Saint Laurent’s in Quebec. One is a suburb of Montreal and one is a suburb of Quebec City. We were told the miles to our pickup were 175 which would indicate it was the one closest to Quebec City. We asked dispatch if they were sure the pickup was the “Saint Laurent” closest to Quebec City. They assured us it was. When I entered the pickup address in our GPS it didn’t find the address so we had to follow the routing information sent to us from our dispatchers. I started driving and noticed we had not been given local directions. We were only given the directions that would get us to the city itself but not the company. I sent a message asking for local directions. When we received them I noticed the street name we were given originally for the address was a little different than what showed on the local directions. I entered that street name in with the city name AND zip code and GPS directions showed the pickup was the “Saint Laurent” near Montreal, not Quebec City. I still kept driving towards Quebec City. I kept trying to convince myself that we were heading in the right direction. I couldn’t do it I couldn’t convince myself. After driving 114 miles I stopped (yes, it took me this long to convince myself) and called dispatch and tried to explain the situation. I asked if they would please call the customer and specifically ask them if they were closest to Montreal or Quebec City. Dispatch was happy to do so and found out they were in fact closest to Montreal. So…………we turned around and headed back. It turns out the pickup location was 17 miles from the place we had just delivered. All total we had gone 219 miles out of the way.
The reason I’m writing this down is because I thought about
us going the wrong way and if we hadn’t questioned it we would have ended up at
the wrong location. I thought about us
as Christians and how awful it would be to find out we had followed the wrong
directions and ended up in the wrong location.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13 – “Enter
through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads
to destruction, and there are many who take it.
For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and
there are few who find it.” Also in
Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says
to me Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does
the will of my Father in heaven. On that
day many will say to me “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast
out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name? Then I will declare to them, I never knew
you; go away from me, you evildoers.”
These people would have thought they were on the right path only to find
out they weren’t. This example tells us
it is possible for us to take the wrong path while thinking, believing or being
told we’re on the right one. How do we
know for sure we are entering through the narrow gate and not the wide
one? How do we know we are one of the
few who found the narrow gate? Is our
road easy or is it hard?
Based on God’s truth, what are the signs to look for along
the path that say “this is the way; walk
in it.”? OR, sometimes is it
necessary to look for the signs along the path that tell us we’re going the
wrong way?
Isaiah chapter one comes to my mind. God told Isaiah “…I have reared children and brought them up, but they have…”
·
“…rebelled against me…”
Am I rebelling against God just like many
Jews did? Have I refused to obey Him,
refused to follow Him or refused to recognize Him?
·
“…forsaken the LORD…”
Have I forsaken our LORD? Have I quit or left Him entirely, withdrawn
from Him without the intent to come back?
·
“…despised the Holy One of Israel…”
Have I despised the Holy One of Israel? Has He become unworthy of my notice or
consideration?
·
“…who are utterly estranged…”
Am I utterly estranged from GOD? Have I lost my affection or interest in God where
there was once love, affection and friendliness?
·
“…no soundness in it…”
Is there any soundness
in me? Am I showing good judgment or
sense in my life, in my decision making?
·
“…your country lies desolate…”
Have I become desolate? Am I joyless, sorrowful as if separated from
a loved one? Am I showing the effects of
abandonment and neglect? Am I
lifeless? Am I devoid of warmth, comfort
and hope? Am I alone?
Jesus tells the church in Ephesus “…you have abandoned the love you had at first…” He then goes on to say “…let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying…” Revelation 2:4-7
Earlier I had written we had directions to get to the city
but needed local directions to get to the company itself. The local directions are what let us know we
were heading in the wrong direction. As
Christians we have received the directions to heaven but have we paid attention
to the local directions that lead us to Jesus?
Jesus tells us in John 14:6 “He is the way…” Have we made it to “His way” or are we
heading in the wrong direction? I don’t
know about you but I don’t want to hear “…I never knew you…”
I pray none of us spends too much time, if any, trying to
convince ourselves we’re on the right path if we sense deep down we may not be.
