Maybe you are familiar with Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Less Traveled”. Maybe you are not. Regardless, the last couple of lines say, “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” How often do we find ourselves vacillating between two roads, two opinions, or two choices? How often do we feel like a boat on rough waters being tossed to and fro from the power of the waves?
I made a life altering decision a few weeks ago. In the moment I made it, I knew that I knew that I knew it was the right decision. But in the days immediately following my decision, I began to question my decision. It was as though I chose a path to walk down only to take a few steps forward and turn around. I would walk a few steps and turn around again. If you were observing me walking this path, it would appear I was pacing back and forth. What I was really doing is questioning my decision.
I started to play the “What If” game. I’m sure you know it well too. What if the consequences of my choice cost me more than I want to pay? What if my relationships are never the same? What if I was WRONG? Sigh. As I sat on my hassock in my living room allowing my mind to race around the track as if it were running a full marathon, I heard the Spirit of Lord whisper to my heart: “A double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways (James 1:8.) You made a choice. Now, you have to stick with it whether the consequences are good or bad.”
Our God is so merciful. It was the exact verse I needed to hear. There is nothing quite like a gentle nudge from the book of James to realign my thoughts. I believe that God desires for us to live a life of no regrets. We will never move forward if we never commit to our choices. God does not want us to live under a cloud of shame, fear, and doubt. Are we going to make mistakes? Yes. Are we going to miss it on occasion? Yes. In those moments, we have to ask ourselves, how big is our God? I heard the founder of Women's Empowerment University (http://www.womensempowermentuniversity.com), Donna Partow say the other day, "If we think that our mistakes are too big for God than our God is too small." Do we really believe that God forgives our sin? Do we really believe that He can make all things work together for our good? Do we really believe that He is for us, not against us?
There is one road to get to Heaven, only one way to eternal life, and that is through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, there may be multiple roads that we can travel to reach our personal destiny. How many different ways can you travel to get to work, the grocery store, or the nearest coffee shop? I’m going to step out on a limb and guess that at the very least there are two different ways to reach your destination. Imagine if you started out toward your job in the morning, stopped, and began to take a different route. Halfway to work, you decide that wasn’t the right decision, so you turn around and go another way. A quarter of the way to work, you decide that you don’t like this road either and turn around. If we keep living life in this fashion, we’ll never reach our destination.
It takes courage to commit. It takes faith to choose. Peace comes when we solidify our decision. Friend, what are you riding the fence on? What two roads are you looking down, not sure which way to go? Make a choice. Take the step of faith – regardless of whether the consequences are good or bad. Right decisions do not equate with easy roads. Sometimes, other people won’t like or agree with our choices. But seek God, and He will give us wisdom. And when we receive that wisdom, we have to follow through with the choices that we make based upon that wisdom. Stop living to please everyone else. Start living to please God.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do” (James 1:8).