The Road Less Traveled

Dt. 30:19-20a

God has a pro-life agenda.  I don’t mean that God is simply against abortion.  What I mean is that God’s purposes for this world point to life over death.  The creation story speaks of God’s purposes for eternal life, a life of unhindered closeness to God, unimpeded by guilt, shame, violence, pride, or any other death-dealing reality.

Unfortunately that purpose of life is surrendered as we choose our own path, our own way. Regrettably, that choice carries us further and further from the source of our vitality, from the hand that sustains us, from the breath that gives life to dust.  We choose the way of death.  That path carries us from the garden into a tough, often unforgiving land.  

Yet, God stands faithfully before us with the offer of life once again.

But our story in the Scriptures reminds us how hard-headed we are, how determined we are to continue down the same path we began, even when its trajectory is tragic.  We are convinced that if I just try harder, do more, take more, drink more, collect more, buy more, that somehow we will find life.  

And yet slowly life is sucked from us by the very things that make such grand promises.

In John 10:10, Jesus taking up this passage again in Deuteronomy, says the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy.  His is the way of death.  It is the path of selfishness.  It gives and yet eventually takes away.  It promises peace but slowly kills our souls.  It promises to be the foundation on which we can build our lives, but gives away and destroys everything for which we've worked.  Nonetheless…we can still choose this way.

However, Jesus says, I have come to give you life, abundant, true, rich life.  This is the way of God’s pro-life agenda.  This is the road less traveled.  It is the path of self-denial and obedience.  It finds it better to give then receive.   It seeks the good of others before it does itself.  It finds life in God’s commandments instead of seeing them as restrictions.  It understands that life is much fuller if we stay within the bounds God establishes for us.  It is the path of closeness and intimacy with God, of trust, faithfulness, integrity and holiness.  It is a path that carries us into the heart of God's love and into a love for our neighbors.  

This is the road less traveled but a road worth the journey.

Questions for Reflection:

1.)  Do the choices you make each day give you life?

2.)  What do you do regularly that seems like it should give you life but in the end leaves you empty?

3.)  What must you change to find abundant life?