There's a Fork in the Road

In your walk with God, have you ever found yourself going down a road on the way to a place you had dreamed and planned about, only to come to a fork in the road?  Perhaps you stopped and looked at the path that led off to the right and wondered briefly if there were great adventures awaiting you in that direction.  You have felt very uncomfortable about where an unfamiliar path might lead.  Then you continued down the road you were planning to go on.  Sometime later, you may have reflected on that fork in the road.  The thought may have even come to you that you could have missed God’s direction.  How can you know you are on the right road?  Did you ever consider looking at the map?  God has put a road map in front of us, yet many never look at it, or study it to find the way in times of decision. 

            My husband and I love to drive around the countryside.  It’s so relaxing to take off early in the morning and just drive.  We don’t always know where we’re headed, but we find interesting places to visit.  Sometimes we drive through familiar territory, or again, we may drive through a neighboring state, looking for out-of-the way places. We might think we know where we are and where we’re headed, but then find ourselves hopelessly lost. About that time, he’ll say, “Honey, why don’t you look at the map?”  Amazingly, it always shows us where we need to go to get back on the right road.

            This is often true in the life of a Christian.  God has called you to follow him and most of us really want to do that.  The problem is that we think we see the whole picture for our life.  However, the Bible says, “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” (I Cor. 13:12)  It looks like it’s time to get out the road map - the Bible!  There are times God is very detailed and to the point, like the following scripture.  “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."  (Isa. 30:21)  You may say, “But God never told me that!”  Well, have you been asking?  Have you been praying and seeking God in this particular situation?  Let me tell you a big truth, God isn’t going to talk to you, if you don’t talk to him. 

          Have you ever made wrong decisions by not talking to God, or waiting for an answer and found you often paid a price for doing that?  It is God’s desire to give you direction.  When we take off on our own, we usually have very little understanding of what to do.  How do we know the decisions we come to are God’s desire for us?  “A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?”  (Prov. 0:24) There are instances in our life when we ignore the Holy Spirit’s leading and follow our own wishes.  We may even pray about it and don’t like what we know is an answer, so we continue to tell God what we want.

            A good example of this kind of decision making is when someone is house hunting and they find what they consider to be their dream home.  They know they can’t afford it, but they pray about it, which they should do.  They go ahead with trying to buy it and are turned down by the bank; the sale of their old house falls through and it looks like nothing is going to work out.  They continue to pray, “God, I know you want me to have that new house of my dreams, even though I can’t afford it - I don’t even have the right furniture and will have to buy new, somehow.”  The realtor doesn’t really want to lose this deal as it involves more than one house, so he comes back and says, “I think I can find a way to get a loan for you”.  Wow!  God has made a way.

The old house sells when the price is lowered; then they buy the new one.  They were right - the furniture didn’t look good, so they went out and charged more, along with a lot of other things they didn’t think of before.  Now they have so many bills, they can’t possibly pay them all every month, so they have to juggle them.  Eventually, it all catches up and either they have to sell the house, or lose it.  Now, they are in worse shape than before, because even if they sell, they have so many bills, by the time they pay them off, there is nothing left to buy another house.

In the above example, God had answered their prayer several times, but they wanted their own way. When we finally get our own way, it may turn out to be a poor decision.  The Living Bible puts in very plainly in Proverbs 1:29-31:  “For you closed your eyes to the facts and did not choose to reverence and trust the Lord, and you turned your back on me, spurning my advice.  That is why you must eat the bitter fruit of having your own way, and experience the full terrors of the pathway you have chosen.”

            Most of us have chosen our own road at one time or another and have “eaten the bitter fruit” of it.  It’s not a pleasant experience and it seems as though we would learn from it, but we don’t.  We prefer to wander down a wide, tree-lined avenue that appears to be headed towards our castle in the sky.  We don’t like to follow the hard, narrow path before us and trust God for where it leads us.

            Let’s look at the roadmap again: “Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you.  Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm.  Do not swerve to the right or the left; keep your foot from evil.”  (Pr. 4: 25-27)  Even if the road ahead looks difficult, don’t compromise, don’t cheat or lie.  It only leads to destruction.  You know when you are going in the wrong direction. You can hear God’s voice telling you to turn away. He does not direct us the wrong way.  “The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out.” (Pr. 10:9)

            Today, you may be at a fork in the road, having to make a decision of some kind.  There may be a way that appears easy and it’s what you really want to do, but in the deep recesses of your heart, you know it’s not the way God wants you to go.  Some may describe this feeling as a “check in the spirit”.  Don’t ignore the “still, small voice of God”.  Psalm 23 tells us that, “He leads me in paths of righteousness.”

There are times when God shows us ‘tough love’ and we cringe at this experience, but if you’ve ever had to use that kind of love on your children, or an abusive spouse, you find that it works.  It’s like taking the person you love and handing them totally to God - out of your hands and into His.  Out of your control and into God’s leading.  Is it easy?  No, but his ways are greater than ours and He knows what’s best.

            In summary, let’s look in Jeremiah 6:16. “This is what the LORD says: "Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.”

Healing The Past

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

 (Rom. 12:2)

There is nothing that hinders a Christian more than holding on to the past.  Often we see God-fearing people at the altar time and time again looking for God’s peace, because of past sin, hurt, or bitterness, in their lives. Still - they are as miserable as ever.  Is there an answer for those who need healing of the past?

Emphatically - yes!  There is hope and help for all those who are encumbered with their past life.  We will look at three separate steps in leaving the past behind, once and for all.

Gods Forgiveness

The first step is to understand the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Ps. 103:12 tells us that God has such compassion on his children (believers like you and me), that when we accepted him as our Savior and Lord, our sins were forgiven and will never be remembered again.  In Isa. 43:25, he again tells us that he blots out our transgressions (sins) and will not ever remember them again.  This means that each time you go to God, weeping and filled with self-condemnation about your past, he is not going to do anything about it.  Why?  He has already taken care of it and cannot remember what you are talking about.  Can he keep forgiving you over and over again, when he looks at you and doesn’t see all those things in your past? Can you be born again, again?  No, and neither can you be forgiven of the past again.  “You are sealed for the day of redemption”.   (Eph. 4:30)

Jesus took your sins upon himself, so you could be forgiven.  Heb. 10:15-18 says that sin and lawless acts He remembers no more and not only that, but verse 18 tells us, “And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.”

We have been given a new life, free from the bondage of our past.  What grace - what mercy! Paul, himself, no doubt had to confront this issue and when he finally received the revelation, he was set free.  Here is the revelation of a buried past.  “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?  Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”  (Rom.6:1-4)

Looking Forward

Now that God’s forgiveness is established, the second step is to decide in what direction we are going.  We have several options as to the direction we take.  We can go to the left, right, backwards or forward. The Word of God will give insight as to all of these options. As believers, we are to obey God’s commands.  It has been this way from the beginning and will remain this way until the end of time.  The command is this:  “So be careful to do what the LORD your God has commanded you; do not turn aside to the right or to the left. Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.”  (Duet. 5:32-33)   God has commanded us to follow him for our own good - so we will have life, be prosperous and live many years.  This is the desire of most people.

The second option is to go backward.  Jesus put it very plainly, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for service in the kingdom of God”.  (Luke 9:62)  Why would he say this to us?  He knows that when we are in bondage to the past, we cannot have our mind on him.  Therefore we won’t be of service to him, if our whole heart isn’t in it.  The Word speaks about a double-minded person and says they are unstable in all they do (James 1:8).  If our mind is on the past when God calls it to be in the present, we are double-minded and what kind of service can an unstable person perform?  God needs our undivided attention.

The only option, within the will of God, is to go forward.  Paul put this as clearly as one could, when he wrote to the Philippians,  “But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,  I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”    (Phil 3:13-14)  Forget - that is what we are told.  Don’t remember what has already past.  It can’t change anything, it won’t do anyone any good and when you’re looking back, you can’t see where you are going.  The only thing it can do is cause disaster and unhappiness.  Who wants to concentrate on the broken pieces of the past, when just ahead is the prize.  “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.”  (I Cor. 9:24)  That prize is an imperishable crown of righteousness! 

Every believer knows that we must keep our eyes on Jesus, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith...”  (Heb. 12:2).  In order to do that, we must look in front of us, for that’s where he is.  One of the disciples said to Jesus, “Let me go bury my father”, “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead.”  (Matt. 8:22)

What Jesus was telling him, was to let the past go - bury it, its dead.  Then, ‘follow me’.  One thing is for sure, you can’t follow Jesus, unless you go forward.

Renewing our Mind

God has forgiven us past sins, but we must bury our own dead past.  The third and final step is the renewal of our mind.  If you are saved, (born again) you have no business following the ways of the world.  You already did that and it didn’t work.  You found that living a sinful life style didn’t make you happy, money never made you happy and a life without Christ was an empty life.  Why on earth, would you want to continue living in the old ways? 

An anonymous quote says that “The battle is won or lost in the mind” and it is scripturally accurate.  Rom. 12:2 teaches us, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.” How do we do this?  It’s called decision making.  Decision making is so simple that often the average person passes over it, looking for a more complex answer to a problem area.  In the business world, they have found ways to come to a decision through graphs, charts and diagrams.  They form teams to investigate problems and through an elimination of causes, they finally come up with a decision. It might take weeks or months to come to this decision and even then it isn’t foolproof, but it is a decision.

As Christians, we don’t have to go to great lengths to find the answer to problem areas in our life.  The manual was already written with explicit detail, simple enough for a child to understand.  For example, if you have a problem concerning finances, the ‘Manual’ says, “You have planted much, but have harvested little. You eat, but never have enough. You drink, but never have your fill. You put on clothes, but are not warm. You earn wages, only to put them in a purse with holes in it.  This is what the LORD Almighty says: "Give careful thought to your ways.”  (Hag. 1:6 & 7)

Now that’s too simple - to think about what you are doing with what you have.  Maybe we should look at another problem, such as, a married couple who fights all the time.  “Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.” (I Pet. 3:9)    Have you ever heard it said, ‘It takes two to tango’?  It also takes two to fight or argue.  If that isn’t clear enough, how about this? "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.” (I Pet. 3:10-11)  It couldn’t be put plainer.

Let’s try one more problem solving - anger.  Your anger may cause you a lot of problems in life and you don’t know what to do about it.  Proverbs gives you a simple answer, “A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control.” (Prov. 29:11)  Need we say more?

God has given you everything you need to renew your mind.  In fact, in I Co. 2:16, he tells us, “we have the mind of Christ”.  All we need to do is decide to use it.  Why was Jesus successful and Adam failed?  Both had to make decisions.  Jesus decided to live a perfect holy life and Adam decided to give in to temptation.  This is why we are told in Phil. 2:5, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.”  When we make the decision to not conform to the pattern the world sets for us, we will be  transformed and “be renewed in the spirit of your mind”  (Eph. 4:23)

Those who are not healed of the past become bitter people.  Eph. 4:31 says, “Get rid of all bitterness…”.  Don’t look back.

P.   - Put

A.  - Away

S.     - Sad

T.    - Thoughts

God has left us with a picture of what happened to one person when they looked back.  The story begins in Genesis 13:12.  Abraham’s nephew Lot had chosen land in Canaan and pitched his tent toward Sodom, a wicked city.  Eventually, he moved into Sodom and lived there with his wife and two daughters.  The daughters married men of the city.  It became so wicked, that God decided to destroy both cities of Sodom and its neighbor, Gomorra.  Abraham prayed to God to save these cities if any righteous could be found in them.  God listened to Abraham’s prayer and sent angels to escort Lot and his family from Sodom.  Lot’s son-in-laws were wicked and laughed at him when he told them to leave, so only Lot, his wife and two daughters escaped before the cities were destroyed. 

There was only one warning the angels gave them as they left, “Don’t look back”.  Lot’s wife didn’t listen and even though she had an opportunity to press on to a new and better life, she dwelt on the past and looked back. She was turned into a pillar of salt.  Looking back destroyed her.  That warning holds true for believers today - don’t look back.  You can be healed from the past if you want to.  Don’t be like the little bird that longed to be free.  The cage door was left open, but he still stayed inside wishing he was free.  Come out into freedom, but be sure you close the door behind you.