I was steering my pickup at 55 mph on Arkansas’ crooked highways with drop-offs of more than two hundred feet to our right.
“Stay on the road,” came April’s voice from the co-pilot’s seat.
She spoke in the nick of time because a plan was formulating in my head to not stay on the road. At that moment, for some unexplainable reason, I was itching to veer the pickup right and enjoy the two hundred foot drop to the bottom of the canyon. A new kind of sight-seeing—one with adventure and danger attached to it
April’s statement pulled me back to reality, and I continued staying on the road. If April’s words of wisdom had not reached me, what might I have done?
All in all, though, April’s words carry excellent advice. It’s also applicable to our faith in a variety of ways.
Let’s dispel with the probable, obvious connection. The 10 Commandments provide an excellent blueprint for life. That’s an obvious truth as they were written by our Creator. If we could live them perfectly, we would successfully ‘stay on the road.’
But we can’t. We’re constantly veering off the road. We hopelessly and continually need help. Jesus selflessly provides patient, gracious help. With His death and resurrection comes His forgiveness of all sins for everyone who puts their faith in Him.
So, Believers are always on the road, right? Right. And wrong. Even with His forgiveness of our sins, we still stray from the road. Suppose I looked at April and said, “Time for a shortcut.” Next, we’re momentarily hovering in mid-air before plunging to the earth two hundred feet below us. At that point, I can’t change my mind and say, “Bad idea. Let’s go back.”
For those who don’t trust in Jesus, it remains a ‘bad idea.’ In fact, people who haven’t put their faith in Him, their entire lives become a ‘bad idea.’ Bad ideas pile on bad ideas.
When a Believer has a bad idea and strays from the road, Jesus has this immeasurable patient capacity to pull the Believer back on the road. Even when the Believer hangs out there in ‘no man’s land,’ the immense grace and love of Jesus has the power to pull the Believer back.
His pulling us back carries more power in motivating us than our struggle to follow the 10 Commandments flawlessly. If that becomes our motivation, we’re doomed to fail, over and over again. Psalm 53:1 puts it simply: “There is no one who does good.” Verse 3 repeats the truth: “There is no one who does good, not even one.”
His power to keep us on the road flows from where? Psalm 1 provides the answer. “How blessed is the man…his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.” (Psalm 1:1 & 2)
To keep us on the road, the Holy Spirit grows within us an ever-increasing passion for God and His Word. We begin living in such a way that we’re continually drawn to Him through His Word. Incredibly, our lives take on active spiritual dimensions we’ve never experienced before.
Psalm 1:3 describes it perfectly: “He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither and in whatever he does, he prospers.” Such active richness there.
Describing a person as a tree emphasizes his endurance, his strength, his composure. Flowers wilt, but trees never do. They are steadfast in the face of everything. As for the ‘streams of water,’ Jesus identifies it better than anyone when He’s visiting with the woman at the well: “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.” (John 4:10)
His living water creates the energetic passion of yielding fruit—moving into other people’s lives and ministering to them in countless ways. It creates a life which never withers like a dead leaf. The fruit continues abundantly.
Finally, he prospers. But his idea of prospering differs from the world’s. His prospering means investing in others, and the pay-off is immense and life-changing. It means bringing others to the road and helping them stay on the road. Nothing beats that investment. Nothing beats staying on the road out of love and devotion to our Lord.