By
Shirley Wiggins
Have you
ever gotten off on the wrong road as you traveled toward a destination?
I remember
crossing the Cahaba River in one day four times from all four directions: North, South, East and West!
This wasn’t
a joy ride. I was actually traveling to a specific place –
a destination I had driven to numerous times before.
I was going
back home in a sense, headed for the small town where I grew up. I had
made this trip at least a hundred times before following a slightly different
route. As I drove farther from the familiar places,
I grew a little anxious about whether or not I would recognize my exit in time
to navigate the traffic and be in the correct lane for making my turn.
I guess I was
so busy worrying that I subconsciously fell in behind a huge semi-truck pulling
a tall trailer. Maybe I just assumed he
was looking for the same exit as me.
Turns out, he wasn’t; but when he exited the interstate highway, I turned behind him only to discover as I drove under
the green exit sign that I was on the wrong highway headed in the wrong
direction!
There I was
in the middle of what seemed like a hundred cars and trucks whizzing by me on
both sides of a three-lane highway.
There were no exits in sight and no place to turn around! I grew seriously alarmed, and tried for the
third time to get my husband on the phone so he could help me figure out how to
get back to the right road.
Unfortunately
he was in a meeting, and wasn’t answering his phone. So, at the first possible exit, thinking I
could find my way back from there, I exited the interstate only to find out
there was no possible route there to take me where I needed to be.
Apparently there really are places where you
cannot get there (where you want to
go) from here (where you currently
are), and I seemed to be in one of those places!
With no other obvious options, I got back on
the road I had just exited from (which
was still the wrong road) and I kept driving in the wrong direction.
I can’t remember
how long I drove, how many miles I covered, or how many turns I had to take to
finally be headed back in the right direction (south). However, to this day I remember how upset I was to know
the road I was driving on wasn’t going to take me to my preplanned destination.
When my
husband was finally able to call me back and I told him what had happened, he
asked, “Where are you?” I could only say truthfully, “I have no idea,
but I have crossed the Cahaba River four times!”
He was able
to direct me to the nearest connection that would get me back on the highway that would take me
where I had intended to go when I got in the car early that morning!
Have you
ever taken a wrong turn in life and found yourself living a life that was
taking you farther and farther away from where you wanted to be?
I have done
that, too. I wasted so many hours that
day crossing the same River four times, resulting in the arrival at my
destination well after dark that day.
The good
news is I did eventually get there and I learned a very important lesson about
travelling: If you want to
reach your destination, pay attention to the road signs along the route!
My Cahaba
‘crossings’ that day remind me of how carelessly I can let days and months and
years slip by while not paying attention to the passing of time – precious
time. Having celebrated a good number of
birthdays reminds me that I have used up more of my allotted days than I
probably have left to enjoy life on this earth.
More
important than whether or not I enjoy my life on this earth is the solemn
reminder that just as life has a beginning, it also has an end date. What happens then? It becomes vitally important to me to know
that when life on this earth ends, I will spend eternity in heaven with the God
who gave me this life.
I believe in
that certainty as my destination because I believe in the God of the
Bible. I believe the Holy Bible is the
inspired Word of God and every word is true.
Do you
believe in God? Every day that we live
brings us closer to our ultimate destination – the place where we will spend
eternity. Where that will be depends on
the choices we are making now.
If we live
our lives focused only on enjoying each day as it comes to the exclusion of
considering what happens at the end of physical life, we can find ourselves in
a place we never intended to be. What do
we really believe about life?
There are many
serious life questions that should not
be ignored. Questions like: do I really
believe that life has purpose and meaning;
do I believe life comes from a
Creator – the God who gives life? Does
God really create each person with a specific plan for his or her life even
though He has created and gifted millions and millions of lives with such great
potentialities?
I do firmly and sincerely believe those
specific things about life and about the God of the Bible. I believe the Holy Bible is the inspired Word
of God, the Creator of life, my life and the world and everything and everyone
in it. I believe that with life comes
responsibility, with responsibility comes accountability.
I use the
term “my” life lightly because I have made an exchange with the God who gave me
this life. I have traded my sin-filled life for the transformed
life of righteousness He offers by and
through the death of Jesus Christ,
His Son Who died on the cross taking the sin of the world on Himself. See Colossians 2.
Why would
God be in the business of making such a deal (covenant) with sinful people?! The Bible gives a very detailed explanation
for that life-changing, all-important transaction. It is vitally important because sin invaded
what God intended to be a perfect world.
People who
have been given the gift of life have all (corporately and individually) taken
a wrong road in life due to the infiltration of sin that came into the world in
the Garden of Eden, the place God prepared for the first two humans He created.
Sin came in
by a corrupt, deceiving creature who posed a question to the first woman,
engaging her in a conversation designed to vilify God Himself: charging God with lying and deceiving humans. That blatant, blasphemous creature identified
throughout the Bible as Satan, laid the
groundwork for the ongoing malicious vilifying of God that is still taking
place today all over the world.
It is
ironic, is it not, that the devil who
deceived and continues to deceive human beings actually accused God of being
deceptive and a liar?
Inconceivable
that a Liar lied and was “believed,” but Holy, Sacred, Sacrosanct God, who
cannot lie, was disbelieved!
Because of
the original sin of disobedience based in deception, Jesus Christ, God’s only
Son, came to earth in the fullness of time to bring truth to a deceived
humanity: to set the record straight
about the God who created the world and the people and everything in it.
Jesus Christ
came to die – the sinless for the sinful - in order that people who choose to
do so may turn around from the road to death and take the road which leads to
life by the transaction provided by Christ Himself on the Cross at Calvary.
Sin takes
people down a destructive and deadly road.
Sin leaves no one untouched, for all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. See Romans 3:23 and
6:23. But, our gracious and merciful
God provided a turn-around, an exit ramp, which leads to fullness of joy in Him
while on this earth and an eternity of life with Him in His forever kingdom.
Truth is very
important to God who has seen that His written record of truth has been
preserved for our knowledge and understanding in the Holy Bible. Please see John 16:12-15, and read it in the Amplified Bible translation, too, if you can.
“The secret things belong unto the Lord our
God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we
may do all of the words of this law.”
Deuteronomy 29:29.
Do you, and
your children, know the way that leads to God, the Giver of Life?
“Jesus said…, ‘I am the Way and the Truth and
the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me.’” – John 14:6 Amplified Bible.
“He personally bore our sins in His [own] body
on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die
(cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 Amplified Bible.
