One moment,
Please.
Reflections on life and faith.
At the crossroads,
Which road will I take?
American poet Robert Frost in his poem,
The Road Not Taken,
Writes two roads diverged in a wood,
And I I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In each of our lives,
We eventually come to a crossroads.
As in Robert Frost's poem,
The path we choose makes a difference,
Sometimes all the difference in the world.
Which path will we choose?
The nature of human nature is generally always to take the path of least resistance,
The path of the familiar,
The path of the crowd,
The path that offers the promise of the greatest pleasure and reward.
We no longer march to the beat of our own drummer or to that distant and perhaps forgotten calling to something we gave up on years before.
As a result,
We find ourselves in mid to late life,
Feeling as though we have merely drifted through life with the winds of fate.
We fail to set our sail to some distant shore but opted instead for the path of least resistance,
The easy path,
The path that required the least discipline and change.
For some,
That path may even have been the path chosen for them by a parent or tradition.
The Greek mythological character Hercules,
Known for his enormous strength and heroism,
Found himself at a crossroads as a young man.
At the head of each path stood a woman.
Their names were Vice and Virtue.
Each appealed to Hercules to take their path.
Lady Vice claimed the easy path would lead to pleasure and happiness.
Lady Virtue reminded him that the road to true and lasting satisfaction is more challenging and toilsome.
This one was the path of ease,
While the other would require toil.
Which would you choose?
One day,
While driving in one of our largest cities,
A friend of mine felt the Lord speaking to him.
He passed a giant junkyard that contained hundreds if not thousands of junked cars.
In his spirit,
He felt the Lord say to him,
That is where your life's work will end.
I have something more for you that doesn't rust and won't end up in a junkyard.
Something that is eternal and life-giving.
He sensed in that moment that God was calling him to leave the lucrative automobile manufacturing business to return to school to study for ministry.
In doing so,
In his mid-thirties,
He would start at the bottom of the heap.
Although he knew it wasn't convenient,
He believed it was the right path.
And so it most assuredly always is when we come to a crossroads and choose the narrow road.
When he went to talk with his boss and told him of his decision to leave,
The boss could not understand why he would turn his back on such a promising and lucrative future.
One that could potentially take him to the very top of the industry.
And so the boss sought to entice him to stay with more money,
To which my friend assured him it had nothing to do with money,
But was about being true to what he felt God was calling him to do.
He told me they lived in a beautiful home on a lake with all the toys and trappings of success,
But he would give it all up to follow his calling.
And so my friend quit his job as a plant manager,
And he went with his wife and sold their house and moved out of state so that he could attend seminary to study for the ministry.
And so he went to school for three more years,
And once he graduated,
He took a ministry position as an associate pastor.
He found himself starting over at the bottom at an age when most people have established careers and earning a tiny fraction of his previous income.
Many years have since passed,
And he recently passed after having had a very successful and fulfilling ministry in the church.
He never again received the big paychecks or the many perks of a rising star in the auto manufacturing business.
However,
Of this I know,
He would do the same again in a heartbeat.
He chose the road less traveled.
When we're building a life by design and seeking to attain happiness,
Success,
And significance,
It requires us to understand that it is not going to happen by taking the path of least resistance.
Regardless of where we find ourselves in this moment,
It requires that we make some new decisions,
Throw aside the easy and the convenient,
And give ourselves to something bigger than ourselves.
It means to park company with ease and comfort and to choose the road less traveled,
The road of the minority rather than the majority.
It is to choose the road to virtue rather than to vice.
Questions for Reflection.
When at the crossroads,
Which path did you choose?
The path of ease or the path of calling?
If traveling down the wrong path,
What will you do to change the trajectory of your life?
For one moment please,
This is Randall Spence.
