The Other Way

Have you ever been driving, came to a fork in the road and didn’t know which way to go? Probably not within the last decade with GPS on our phones. But you know the feeling, right? You’re going along one way and suddenly it splits into two, sometimes without warning or visible street signs to guide you. How do you know which way to go? Do you make a gut decision and simply cruise right along knowing you could turn around if it ends up being the wrong way? Do you come to a complete stop right there in the road and painfully decide, second guessing yourself the rest of the way just wondering where the other road would have taken you? It feels this way in life sometimes. There are decisions to be made and not all of us are good at being decisive. Or maybe we catch a glimpse of where each road will take us, and it becomes unbearable to choose between the two. We think of the people our decision will affect or the hidden consequences waiting for us down the road.

I once was driving and this happened to me, not physically but figuratively. I saw in my mind the two ways I could go and no other. It seemed too overwhelming, perhaps devastating even, to make such a major decision in my life at 25 years old. Inside my little Honda Civic that day I heard a voice say to my weary little heart, “there’s another way…”. See, I had been looking at the figurative fork in my road horizontally. At that moment God showed me the other way. Vertically.

When you don’t know which way to go… look up. Focus on Him. Take your eyes off your horizontal problems and go vertical. Go to the Lord with your decisions. Follow Him. He knows the way. He IS the way.  “…if you will just focus on following Me, I will handle all your decisions.” I decided to do just that. He has been true to His promise, and I’ve been following Him ever since. So, which way will you go?

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.”  “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”   Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him!”   John 14:1-7 ESV

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