Why is the road less taken……less taken?

Why is the road less taken……less taken? 

I’m thinking it might have something to do with the fact that it isn’t really all that easy to stay on the narrow road. It takes effort, determination, and practice to stay on it. Ya know the road I am talking about, that narrow road, the one we, as followers of Christ are called to be on….ya know the narrow path, not the wide path, but the narrow one. 

Matthew 7:13-14

13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

It is so easy for us to just find an exit ramp and find ourselves back on the wide road. Back in the same places that we have been, feeling the same emotions we have felt, and thinking the same way we used to think. This Christ following thing isn’t always so easy. And if you’re like me, being raised, first, in the ways of the world, we now find it a challenge to maintain our eternity view and live in the way that God calls us to live. 

We return to what we know and most of the time it isn’t even a conscious decision. We just return to the lies that we used to believe. We have believed them for so long they sometimes feel like the truth. Isn’t that amazing? We tend to find comfort when we return to those lies because in those lies is a place we are familiar with. It doesn’t matter that those lies are killing us or doing us harm. It just feels good to be back in familiar territory. It gets comfortable returning to the “couch” or the sidelines of life. 

 

In time though we figure out why it is we left those lies and turned to Christ in the first place. Why do we have to learn the same things over and over again? I suppose Paul suffered in a similar way didn’t he? Isn’t that we read in his rant in the books of Romans? (See Romans 7:15-25)

Let me share an example from my own life. At the beginning of the summer of 2013 I was hopeful that the momentum that I had going would continue and I would begin to settle down in my life and that the attacks would ease up and Satan wouldn’t always be knocking on my front door. Life was good, I was involved with the church, I was writing on this blog, my prayer life was strong, my fear of life had subsided. Man life was great and I had finally arrived at where I needed to be and could now sit back and enjoy. Boy was I so wrong. Don’t be fooled like I was friends, Satan will never give up. He will never stop hunting you down, never stop pressing into your life to ruin it. I believed his lie that I arrived and I relaxed. 

Just six months ago I prayed for change at work and when it came I was not ready. I wanted change as I was unhappy and had been praying but when it showed up so quickly my first reaction was fear. After a couple days I realized how silly I had been. Here I asked God to move and He does and I was upset at the disturbance in my life. I laughed at myself and realized that I am yet just a child stuck in my childlike ways. That was 6 months ago and I think the change is almost complete. 

It has been a long 6 months and I have changed in many ways and in yet in some ways I have not change but reverted to old ways. In so doing I have left the path that I should be on. I have left my place on the narrow road; I have left my seat at the banquet table if you will. 

The change at work was somewhat of a catalyst for my falling away from God’s ways. It took a lot of time and effort to overcome the obstacles that I faced at work to make this change work for me. I had to dedicate a lot of time and attention to be successful. While I do understand the needs of my job and the time I needed to invest to meet the challenge it made me very angry that this job could just take over my life. The demands of the job were so great that it lead to me dropping out of school. I was working long hours at the office and then working more at home.  This is why I quit my last job. I don’t have a life so I can work, I work so I can have a life and the working part got so great that it drowned out the important things in my life. I even quit writing on this blog. 

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have a great job and am surrounded by inspirational people and I believe this is where God wants me right now. It just got out of control and dominated my life more than I wanted it to.

So, with no school and only work in my life I lost my way. That was the old self, a workaholic. Nothing else mattered but the job. Before I knew it, other areas of my life were also returning to the old self. My old habits returned. It all lead me to fall right back into whom I was before I came to Christ.

You see, I ended up on the wide road because I simply made the wrong choices. I lost my focus. I believed those lies and let my deceitful desires corrupt me. I thought I was all that and was in complete control of my life. My faith was strong so I didn’t need to keep praying everyday or make sure I was at church every Sunday. I was in control, life was good. I was strong; I believed I would be OK. Maybe that is how the people of Ephesus felt.

Pastor Jared preached this past weekend in the book of Ephesians and also spoke about why Paul wrote the church of Ephesus a letter. You see the people of the church were falling away from their teachings in Christ and were slipping back to their old ways (just like I did) so Paul wrote them a letter of encouragement. Jared focused on the following verse.

Ephesians 4:20-24

20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.     

So here I am, January 4^th, 2014, and I am waking up again to the fact that God is not at the center of my life as He should be. I am no longer following Christ. I have left the battlefield and have returned to the sidelines and am now just a mere fan. I’m not happy with that. As a matter of fact, I am miserable. 

It is time to change things up, take control, and get back to the man God designed me to be.

It is time for Morning Prayer, time to humble myself AGAIN before my risen savior, time to seek forgiveness, and most importantly time to get back off that couch and into the battle. Yes friends, you know what that means. It is time to make cookies! 

How about you? Are you ready to lean in during 2014 and take control of your life again? We can do this by first letting go of the idea that we are in control. We are not. We can do nothing without Jesus, nothing of value anyway.

Victory through surrender is what is needed.

It won’t be easy, nothing of any real value ever is. What we need to do is follow the advice Paul gave in Ephesians 4:22. We need to put off the old self and to do that we need to change our old habits and start evaluating any new ones. Are you doing things that bring you closer to God or are you doing things that separate you from God?

What people are you surrounding yourself with? They say that you are the sum of the 5 people you hang around the most. Maybe it is time to replace a few friends who tend to lead you away from the Christian life. Preferably we would want them to start making changes too and be a part of this but in the end, the truth is, we have zero control over what they chose. We only have control over what WE choose for our lives. It may seem harsh, but if some people don’t want to change then maybe they need to go. No matter whom they are or how long you have been friends. 

This is your life you are talking about. Are you willing to sacrifice your future for the sake of being nice? I am not. 

Stand your ground Christian. You don’t have to stand alone. God is on your side. He ALWAYS stands with you, even if you are not paying attention to Him. He is there. 

Let me close with a prayer for you,

Dear Lord, 

Please nudge the person reading this right now. Fill them Lord, with the warmth of your love. Fill them with the reassurance Lord that you are in control and that you are ALWAYS working for good in their favor. You can take the mess we make of our lives and use it for good. 

Please open their eyes to the changes that they need to make in 2014. 

I lift them up to you Lord. 

Please open their eyes to the stuff that needs to go, to the changes that need to be made. 

No matter what it is Lord, reveal truth to them please. If it is a change in their habits show them, give them strength to stand against that habit. If it is a change in friendships, please open their eyes Lord as how to best separate themselves from those people. 

Touch also, those people who need to be let go of. Soften their hearts to you so that maybe, just maybe, these people recognize the truth about what is happening and they need you too. Bring these people to you too.

Help us all Lord, to see that the only true way to gain victory in this world is through surrender to you and your ways.

We again Lord, surrender unto you. Please give us the strength to see these changes all the way  through. We simply can’t do it without you. 

In Jesus name and power I pray these things. 

 

Amen      

Please join me this Sunday as we lean into Jesus and seek the changes we need for our lives.