How Did I Get On This Back Road?

One time, I was on my way to an engagement where it was very important for me to be on time, and I really should have had my wife with me. She was always a great navigator, and had a great sense of direction; while I can't find my way out of my bedroom in the morning. So it was always good to have her along, but she wasn't there.

So, I missed the main road, and that main road was a straight shot to the school where I needed to be. Instead, I started to wander on this endless, winding road that went forever without passing a house or a person, in fact without even intersecting another road. Any other time, it maybe would have been a nice, quiet ride in the country. But this winding road wasn't taking me where I wanted to go. I needed the main road! I needed it fast! And somehow I had lost the main road. Maybe you have, too.

John the Baptist was one of the most intriguing people in the New Testament, and his calling was to prepare people for the Lord's coming. Now, there's a lesson for us - how to get ready for the Lord's coming again, and even how to get ready for what He wants to do in your life. Maybe this year He would like to come into your life in a new, and dramatic, and reviving way.

In the Bible, Luke 3 is about people who were on a winding road when they needed a straight one, and it shows how you can get back to the main road. If you feel like your road has developed some curves and bumps recently, here’s Luke 3:3 - "John went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, 'A voice of one calling in the desert, prepare the way of the Lord! Make straight paths for Him.'" He says that, I guess, to people on winding roads. "Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked road (you on one of those?) shall become straight, the rough ways (maybe that's where you are) will become smooth."

So, how do you get ready for the Lord's coming to you? Straighten out the curves and smooth out the bumps. How do you do that? Let's go back to John's message. It's a message about repentance from sin. You deal with your sin, you repent. You change! You finally change in that area where you've stubbornly been doing it your way. We desperately try every other possibility to get the bumps out of the road. We change the scenery, our job, our church, our hairstyle, our plans, our approach, people in our lives. Yet we're still hitting the bumps and curves.

The reason may well be a sin that you have not confronted. Now, you may feel bad about it, you may have even asked forgiveness for it, but you haven't changed. God's looking for repentance that is expressed in deeds - not words. Will you actively begin to do the opposite of what you were doing wrong? Over-correct, and make sure you are steering radically away from the sin that has been a part of your life for too long. The bumps and curves will continue to plague you until you attack the sin that you've been tolerating.

Are you tired of the back road you're on? Why not go back on God's main road? You access God's best by repentance. If your shock absorbers have absorbed about all the bumps they can, make the one turn that will help - turn away from that sin and toward God's better alternative. It's time to get back on the main road.

©Ronald P. Hutchcraft 2024