One simple way to view life is to think of how it is a journey up a mountain trail. There are many times when on this journey there are forks in the path ahead of us, and we must choose which one to take, knowing that one of them leads to the place you have heard so much about. You want to get there, but sometimes it seems so hard.
Early in your life you heard about the Hiker who completed the journey and always made the right choice. You have read the book about His life and you are convinced that He really lived, completed the journey and has left behind the story of His life. There is something so fascinating about Him that you long to be like Him, knowing that He is waiting for you at the end of your own journey.
There are those around you, often your own parents, who have told you so much about you the Hiker, but now the time has arrived that you must make your own choice. You have reached “the age of accountability” and your journey begins with you making your own choices in life. Before you lies the first major fork in the path. One path evidently gives you so much more freedom and what looks like a far easier path. It certainly does not seem to have the many hard climbs that you see on the path the Hiker took.
You must make that decision on your own and it is not an easy one. You soberly look at the two options and as you start your journey you must first answer this question, “Do you believe with all your heart that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God?”
You see others as they come to that division in the trail and most of them choose the easier path to the left. You have made your choice; you choose to go to the right. It is remarkable how often on the journey you choose to make this same choice. It is as though it is always right to do right.
You very soon discover other crossroads. One is how to respond to obeying my parents. One concerns moral purity. Another is how much time do I spend meditating on the Hiker’s book and meeting with others who every week spend serious time learning more about Him and in a sense being with Him. There is a path of your place of secular employment and social life with those in that place. There is the path of responding to those who mistreat you and how to deal with them. Time after time you make the harder decision to continue your upward journey even though it seems more difficult.
As you make this journey you are more and more convinced that you made the right decision when you made your first choice. Then, the time arrives, and your journey is about finished. You see Him with outstretched arms awaiting you and saying, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”
-Dan Jenkins
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