At The Crossroads

If you are parked at the corner of Main Street and Broadway in Altus, Oklahoma (my hometown), facing south, you can turn right and head west on U.S. Route 62. It will take you all the way to El Paso, TX. 

But if you choose to turn left and head east, that same highway will eventually land you in Niagara Falls, NY. 

Now, if you make a U-Turn there on Main and Broadway and head north on U.S. Highway 283, you can stay on that road until it reaches Arapahoe, Nebraska. 

But if you took none of those options and kept your car headed south on 283, you would end up in Brady, Texas, about 100 miles southeast of Abilene. 

At that one intersection, that crossroads in Altus, Ok, you can drive to one of four places thousands of miles apart. 

Seemingly simple decisions, turning the steering wheel from right to left, have consequences and can take us along roads that can lead us far from where we once were, for good or bad. 

I’ve always loved the Yogi Berra quote, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”

“Someplace else” may not be where you want to be. So how do we know?

By keeping the end in mind. It’s one of the  7 Habits of Highly Successful People that Stephen Covey underscored in his highly successful book.  With no vision, we may wander through life somewhere between where we started and ended, Brady or Arapahoe? El Paso or Niagara Falls? Someplace else in between?

The Scriptures tell us in Luke 9:51 that Jesus “resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” 

Jesus was in Galilee, so he turned south toward Jerusalem and walked with his disciples toward his destination, Jerusalem, which was the end of the road for him;  that’s where he intended to die, at Golgotha.  The distance from Galilee to Jerusalem is about 80-90 miles, but Jesus may have been closer than that when he “set his face” toward the Holy City. And apparently, he didn’t make it a straight-line journey. It was like traveling along U.S. Route 62 from Altus, Ok, to El Paso or from Altus to Niagara Falls. It gets you there, but you best be willing to meander. Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem. That’s the main thing: he knew where he was going.

Standing on a dusty road in Galilee, Jesus could have turned north and taken his ministry further into Galilee. It would have been safer, no doubt. Even the road east or west would have promised better lifelines. Any direction but south to Jerusalem. But Jesus decided to take the road south.

How about you? Know where you are going? Have you thought about where God wants you to go? It’s more than a travel plan. It’s how you live along the journey, wherever it may take you.  

Alice, in Alice in Wonderland, asks the Cheshire Cat, “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” And the Cat tells her, “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” When Alice tells the Cat she doesn’t much care, the Cat says, “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

Maybe it matters to you, like it does to me. And if it does, then the road you choose matters.

I once was at the crossroads at the corner of Main and Broadway in Altus, OK. I could have chosen any direction. But at a point in time, in 1975, I decided to take U.S. 287, South. At least, that’s where I started. I ended up in Waco, TX. From there, I took many other journeys. But I had to start somewhere. I couldn’t stay stopped at the intersection, with the Jackson County Courthouse to my right and First National Bank to my left. I had to “set my face.”

So did Jesus. But here’s what we have to get if we are to get Jesus: his decision must determine ours. And that will make all the difference in our destination.

The one in this world. 

And the next.