The Road Less Traveled

So many things from our high school days get forgotten. At age 62 I have probably forgotten more things than I ever learned in my life but I do remember SOME things. Like high school English class when we had to read poems. That sucked. I remember that! But I do remember this one poem. I have always loved the last three lines of it. You've probably heard them. The words are a kind of a guide for my life but I wasn't sure why until today. Please read this wonderful American poem with me.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

Do you tend to take the road less traveled? Do you tend to make choices CONTRARY to public opinion simply because you prefer not blending in with the crowd? Or going along with the flow. Do you do that? Perhaps that is why movies like Robin Hood, Hunger Games and Divergent appeal to me so much. The underdog, the rebel, the non-conformist . . . that's me.

I'd like you to read something else if you would. It's from another piece of literature penned long ago. See if you can see any similarities between these two writings you have read today.

"13 “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - Matthew 7:13-14

It seems to me that "the road less traveled" these days is the one that leads to Jesus. Same-sex marriages are now the law of the land, the Ten Commandments are being removed from a court house by Oklahoma's Supreme Court. The road just keeps getting narrower and narrower.

Many people I know have left the narrow road in favor of the one their friends are walking on. They would rather be with the majority. They would rather fit in. Why? I think it's because they are afraid. Afraid of being left alone. Afraid that no one will love them. Afraid they will be picked on because they're different. Sad.

Have you seen the movie Divergent? I watched it this past weekend. It's about futuristic society where everyone has a role. Everyone must fit into that role or they are destroyed. The people who don't fit in are called "divergents." They are the ones who choose the road less traveled.

Do you like to fit in with the crowd? Even if the crowd might be wrong?

The world we live in now embraces that which once was considered abnormal. We kill our children at the rate of 125,000 each day. We have passed laws legalizing suicide. We embrace same-sex relationships contrary to God's decrees. The younger generation has determined that sex before marriage is normal, expected, and so they are having babies out of wedlock. What once was, is no more. And what was narrow, is now wide.

To be a Christ follower in today's world is becoming increasingly difficult. In the coming days we will be persecuted, shunned in society because of our beliefs. We will be the strange ones, the oddity in society. In the eyes of the secular world we will become divergent. Check that. Guess what. We already are.

"20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." - Isaiah 5:20

Divergent Trailer