Two Different Paths

 

In his classic poem The Road not Taken, Robert Frost described stopping at a fork in the road as he took a walk through the forest. The poem begins this way:

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

We often come to similar forks in the road in life. We can choose the worldly life, described in Psalm 1; this is the man who stands in the path of sinners and takes his seat among the ungodly. We can also choose the Christian life, where we put on the full armor of God and cultivate the fruit of the Spirit. The choice is completely up to us. 

 

Proverbs 5 mentions different paths. While giving advice to his son Rehoboam, Solomon told him to avoid the path of the adulterous woman because “her feet go down to death, her steps lay hold of hell (v.5).” That word used for path in Hebrew refers to that which is movable, and has been translated elsewhere as slippery. Today we speak of something as a slippery slope, meaning that if Rehoboam began to spend time with this woman, before he knew it, he would be slipping and sliding down the path that would ruin his life. 

 

Sometimes in a store or mall I see signs posted, alerting shoppers that someone has recently mopped and the floor is still wet. That is what Solomon is doing here. He is putting out one of those yellow wet floor signs for Rehoboam, warning him that he is certain to fall if he isn’t careful. Instead of bruising his tailbone, Rehoboam could lose his life. 

 

At the end of that same chapter Solomon wrote, “For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and He ponders all his paths (v.21).” This word paths is different than the one in the fifth verse. This Hebrew word describes the path made by wagons and horses where there were no paved roads. This word came to speak of a person’s habits because following the same path over and over would develop grooves in the ground. A person’s paths were the things he did repetitiously. The warning is clear: do not follow the slippery path of the adulterous woman, because the Lord knows your paths. God knows full well the patterns in our lives. 

 

Jesus mentioned two roads—one broad and easy to traverse, and the other narrow and difficult. Many, He said, meaning the majority, travel the broad road, and few—the minority—travel the narrow.  

 

Frost concluded his poem this way:

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Few people choose the straight and narrow road. It is unfortunately the road less traveled by, but choosing it makes all the difference. 

Jesus is the Word

 

In John’s Gospel he famously referred to Jesus as “the Word,” writing, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (1:1).” How do we know the Word is Jesus? John tells us in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  

 

It is clear John called Jesus the Word, but why? The simplest answer is that John was referring to the words spoken by the Godhead during the week of creation, for John wrote, “All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made (v.3).” By calling Jesus the Word, John clearly pointed back to the words spoken in the opening chapters of Genesis, when God said “let there be…and there was.”

 

But John meant more than just the spoken words. He used the Greek word logos, which is a special word. He could have used the word rhema, for example, but he didn’t. Logos is deeper than just the words used, but speaks to the thought process behind the words. As William Dembski wrote in his book The End of Christianity, “Logos is therefore an exceedingly rich notion, encompassing the entire life of the mind.” 

 

Etymology refers to the study of a word’s history, and the etymology of logos is interesting. The Greek word stems from the root lego, translated as “to speak,” but the earliest definition of lego is actually “to lay something down.” Over time, lego began to mean “to pick up and gather,” and then “to select and gather.” As it relates to speaking, then, logos means “to select and gather words.” Logos is not just about speaking, or even speaking certain words, but in choosing which words to speak.

 

Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon has among their many definitions of logos, “the word by which the inward thought is expressed.” The etymology continues when we trace the variant root lec (rather than leg), which appears in our English words intellect and intelligence. Intelligence literally means “to select or choose between.” 

 

Now we have something larger than just saying Jesus spoke the world into existence. Logos speaks to the question of motive. God chose to create the world; speaking was just the vehicle by which He accomplished His will. Logos speaks to the intelligence in our Creator. Jesus was the brains behind the operation, not just the one who carried it out. Isn’t this exactly what we see when we look at the universe? The world attributes everything to random chance, but the Bible points to intelligent design. The universe is far too intricate to have been a coincidence or luckiness; our Lord—the Logos, the Word—put it together as only a sovereign God could.        

 

 

Augustine’s Pears

 

Have you ever stolen anything? If so, it was probably for a reason. A beggar steals food because he is hungry. A child steals candy because he wants to put that chocolate in his mouth. An addict steals anything of value to fund his habits. Others steal out of jealousy and a desire to have what others have. 

 

In his classic autobiography titled Confessions, Saint Augustine of Hippo recounted the time he stole some pears from another man’s tree. He was only sixteen years old, and many might dismiss his actions as a harmless teenage prank, but for Augustine, his theft revealed a deeper heart issue. Listen to how he would later describe this pivotal event in his life: “We carried off a huge load of pears, and after barely tasting some, fed the rest to hogs. We had no intention of eating the pears, but to simply steal them. This act pleased us because it was forbidden…I had no desire to enjoy what I had stolen, but to enjoy the theft and the sin itself.” 

 

Far from sweeping this petty crime under the rug, Augustine lamented, “Behold with what companions I walked the streets of Babylon!...I loved my own undoing…I had become to myself a wasteland.”  

 

Typically people steal to feed themselves or a habit. Augustine’s thievery accomplished no moral purpose. This was not a situational ethics case of arguing that the ends justified the means (Better to steal than starve to death). For Augustine, the act of stealing pears was symptomatic of a larger problem—that his heart was totally depraved and far from God. It mattered not whether he stole pears or pearls; the dollar amount was of no concern to God. 

 

His brutal honesty in assessing his fallen condition is what ultimately led to his salvation. As long as we insist that our sin is no big deal and try to downplay its seriousness (Relax, it’s just a few pears!), we will never come face to face with our own separation from a holy God and need of a Savior. Many who live in sin choose to view God as an officer of the law, someone who just waits for us to mess up so He can make the big bust. Augustine viewed God differently. He wrote of his Lord, “…as I recall in the bitterness of self-examination my wicked ways, that you may grow ever sweeter to me, You who are sweetness without deception! You are sweetness, happy and assured! You gathered me up out of those fragments in which I was torn to pieces while I turned away from you…”

 

The Bible is clear that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23),” and that “the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).” We will not make it to heaven by sinning less than other people, by sinning for noble causes, or by sinning in only minor infractions. It all comes down to your heart. The natural person—the one who has not yet been saved by grace—sins for sin’s sake. Sin is what sinners do. Is your heart a wasteland, or have you been saved? 

In God’s Time

 

We often say that God does things in His time, not ours. Because we live in time we want things to happen right now; there have been plenty of times in my life that I wanted God to do something, and I wanted it done yesterday. We live by time. We keep calendars and make notes in planners. We know what time to punch in and what time to go home. Every morning when the alarm clock goes off we are reminded that the time to wake up is now, otherwise we will be late. Things start on time, and when we travel we like to make good time. We cannot separate ourselves from time because it is all around us. That has always been the case for civilization. The ancients made sundials because time was important even when there was no clock. 

 

We operate in time, but God exists outside of time. In fact, God created time to help us. He existed before there was time, and during the days of creation, God introduced the concept of time with the first evening and morning forming a literal day. Many stories begins “Once upon a time,” but the Bible begins “In the beginning [of time],” and God was already there. The point is, we want things done in our time, but God exists outside of time. 

 

This would be easier to understand if we were Greek. While the English language has supplied us with but a single word for time, the Greek language has twice as many. One word is chronos, which is the word associated with our understanding of time. It refers to the time of day, and gives us our word for chronology, the sequence of time. The other word is kairos, which refers to special moments in time. Chronos is quantity of time, while kairos is quality of time. You and I are always concerned with chronos time, but God is concerned with kairos time. This is why Peter could write, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day (II Peter 3:8).” Similarly, this is why Jesus so often told people, including his human mother, that His time (kairos) had not yet come. It was not the divinely appointed time to act.

 

This is why Paul could write, “We look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal (II Corinthians 4:18).” The things that are seen are temporary (chronos), and the things that are invisible, or occurring in the heavenly realm, are eternal (kairos). There is only one time zone in heaven, and it is KST, Kairos Standard Time. 

God’s time is not about the words on the calendar or the hands on the clock. God’s time is about accomplishing His will at the precise time, and in His sovereign control, He is able to work things out perfectly, based on factors that you and I cannot see. We can only look back in time, but God has our future in mind. So right now, in this moment in time, you may be wishing God would hurry up and do something, and maybe you are wondering what is taking Him so long. God will do what is best in His will and will work all things out for good, but He is going to do it in His perfect time. The time has not yet come, but that doesn’t mean that it wont, so don’t lose hope.   

 

Mr. Irrelevant

 

The professional football world has bestowed a rather inglorious title upon the final person selected in the annual NFL draft. Since 1976 the last person drafted has been dubbed “Mr. Irrelevant” because, after seven rounds, there is almost no chance of the last player actually signing a contract and making any money. While being drafted is an honor, and being draft last has to beat not being drafted at all, there has to be a bit of embarrassment that goes with that moniker. Mr. Irrelevant is usually honored with a parade as an ironic statement of his new standing in the league. He will probably never be in a Super Bowl parade, so let’s let him have this one.  

 

South Carolina Gamecocks fans might remember the name Ryan Succop, the former place kicker for USC. As you might have guessed, he had the title of Mr. Irrelevant endowed upon him in 2009 when he was taken 256^thoverall by the Kansas City Chiefs. After four years with that franchise, and five with the Tennessee Titans, Succop made history this year when he won Super Bowl LV with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yes, Succop is the first Mr. Irrelevant to play in and win a Super Bowl (1994 Mr. Irrelevant Marty Moore played in Super Bowl XXXI, but his New England Patriots lost to the Green Bay Packers).   

 

Succop didn’t just play in the big game, he was a major contributor. He made all four of his extra point attempts (12 of 13 in the playoffs) as well as his lone field goal attempt from fifty-two yards out (he was a perfect 9 for 9 in the playoffs). There is obviously nothing irrelevant about Succop’s talent. To add to the Cinderella story, he was playing with quarterback Tom Brady, who was famously drafted in the sixth round and has arguably become the greatest of all time at his position. 

 

There was a time when people may have snickered at Ryan Succop. “He’s irrelevant!” I even remember a few Clemson fans having a chuckle at his expense when he was branded with his new nickname. Succop drowned out the noise and made a nice twelve year career (and counting) for himself, which happens to include a Lombardi Trophy. Most of the people who called him irrelevant will never even see a Super Bowl trophy, let alone hoist one up in victory. The Bucs kicker is an example of why we should never let people define us. We have to drown out the naysayers and just keep working. 

 

Those hurtful names may come from other people, but they ultimately originate with the devil. His name literally means “the accuser,” and his favorite tactic is to tell us and God how bad we are. He reminds us of our shortcomings. We were drafted last. No one wants us. We will never contribute anything. 

 

We are sinful. We have let God down. Jesus could never love us. 

 

Satan may accuse us now, but we will have the last laugh. John was given a vision of a future day: “Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, ‘Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down (Revelation 12:10).’”

So don’t listen to him. When Satan says you are a failure, God says you are forgiven. 

When Satan says you are a loser, God says you are loved. 

When Satan says you are worthless, God says you are worth it. 

And when Satan says you are irrelevant, God says are significant.