08.06.08

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. - Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV. 

Show me Your ways, O Lord; Teach me Your paths. - Psalm 25:4 NKJV. 

Good and upright is the Lord; Therefore He teaches sinners in the way. The humble He guides in justice, and the humble He teaches His way. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth, to such as keep His covenant and His testimonies for Your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. - Psalm 25:8-11 NKJV.  

What way is your life headed? What path are you really traveling? Are you going the way that you want to go - without really considering what God wants? This is the way that our flesh, our natural man wants to travel. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 14:12, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”  

There is also the way that others would want us to travel. The Psalmist says in Psalm 1:1, “... the path of sinners....” There is another way, a best way, which the Lord wants us to take: “This is the way, walk in it (Isaiah 30:21).”  

I remember while working in the oilfield going to a job out in the ranching country west of Canadian, Texas. If you remember the movie, Cast Away, with Tom Hanks that is where the movie ended. He delivered an unopened package with angel’s wings that had washed up on the island to a home near Canadian in the Texas Panhandle (The home is a bed and breakfast now.).  

My directions to the job instructed that I was to take the second fork in the road after leaving Canadian. We took the second fork in the road and drove and drove. There are many miles of unpaved roads through that ranching area. We came back to the beginning and took another possible second fork in the road and drove and drove. I enlisted a deputy sheriff to help find the rig location we were to go to. I went back to Canadian and called in for more directions - if only I had had a cell phone! We searched for most of the day and burned up a tank of gas before receiving the directions for the right way to the location.  

Yes, it was the second fork in the road but the second fork turned onto a pasture trail with only tracks for the tires of vehicles. We were searching for an actual road traveled by many vehicles but the road we needed was a narrow one! 

After traveling this narrow road for about a half mile, we went down into a valley where the oil rig was located. The drilling rig could not be seen from the main road which we had traveled many times by then. By the time we arrived, we were tired, frustrated, and still had a job to do.  

How much simpler and easier life is when we have the right directions and follow the right path!