"Choosing the Right Pathway"

Choices, choices, choices, what is one to do?  Which path is the right and correct path to follow?

Do you remember the riddle about coming to a fork in the road?  When one thinks of a fork in the road one might think of the great philosopher, Yogi Berra and his great insight when he commented,

"When you come to a fork in the road, take it?"

Well so much for Yogi Berra.  So here is the riddle.

You are traveling down a road with great purpose and up ahead you notice a divide, a fork in the road.  Such prompts the question, “Which is the correct path to take?”  Only one will lead to your destination.

It is then that you notice the two men of which you heard.  They are standing at the junction where you will have to make a decision as to which road to take. 

Both of them know the correct answer to your question.  However, you've been warned that one of them always, without exception, lies and that the other, without exception, tells the truth.

You are allowed one question, but it must be the same question for both.

What is the question that you would ask to find the right path?

Here are some choices you might use to find the answer to the riddle.

• Use a lifeline and call a friend.
• Draw on some personal experience or another to make a decision.

• Use your intuition--you have a 50% chance of being right.

• Make a guess--again you have a 50% chance of being right.

• Make a choice and allow fate to decide outcomes.

• Flip a coin or roll the dice.

• Wait for the next person and follow them.

• Discount that the destination even exists.

• Give up the whole idea.

Maybe there are others that can go on the list.

The solution of the riddle is easier than it might first appear. 

You would simply ask each man in turn this question. 

"Which path would this other man say is the correct path?"

Both will give the same answer which is the wrong path and so you simply would take the other pathway.

Here is the explanation.

The liar will lie and say that the truthful man would say to go down one of the paths—the wrong path.  Because it is a lie, the correct path is the other path.  However you still do not know which man you are questioning.

The truthful man will tell the truth and say that the liar would say to go down one of the paths—the same one the liar picked.  Again you would not know which man you are questioning.

You do not need to know which is which but that they both pointed to the wrong path.  So then the correct choice is to choose the alternate pathway which is of course the proper pathway to the questioner's destination.

The Choices We Make…

Choices, choices, choices, what is one to do?  Which path is the right and correct path to follow?

Each of us, as we travel the roadway of life, arrives at many places where choices have to be made.  Most often the choices are obvious and certainly not as complex as in the previous riddle.

It is then that one must ask the question.  What is the basis upon which the choice is made?  As in the riddle, both roads do not end at the desired destination.  How is one to know?

Changing Frame of Reference…

The answer is found in what one chooses as his frame of reference.  If that frame of reference is ever moving and changing (self, group, situation, culture, mores, etc.) then there is great difficulty in choosing the right and correct pathway.  One never knows whether such is the correct path as culture is always redefining “correct.”

This is the easy path which must be wide in order to accommodate the great many that choose to walk it.  Actually there are those many because it is the pathway of one’s referent group and/or the culture in which one lives.

Constant Frame of Reference…

If on the other hand one chooses based upon a constant frame of reference, one that has not change for 2,000 years (The Judeo-Christian Scriptures, ethical truth, etc.) then there is less difficulty in choosing the right and correct pathway.

This is not the easy path, in fact it can be very difficult and therefore not many choose to travel its miles and so it has no need to be wide.  These are those who often are called upon to stand alone.

Easy Pathway…Maybe Not So Much!

Choices!  Choices lead to pathways.  Jesus taught about these pathways in his story, “The Gates.”  You can read about it in His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). 

Matthew 7:13-14 13 "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  14 "For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  NASU

The choice as to which gate to enter has a consequence.  The outcome of that choice is a path.  Walking that path has another consequence.  One path is difficult and leads to life, the other path is easy and leads to death.

The wonderful thing about being a follower of Jesus the Christ is this.  No matter how difficult the travel, dark the night, unfair the treatment, as one travels on the narrow pathway, there is One who said, "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you" (John 14:18) and so we who travel the difficult way though it may be difficult, dark, and lonely, we really never do travel alone.

The question I have for you today is actually quite simple, yet profound in its simplicity. 

“Do you have the courage to choose the pathway of the Christ and thus to enter through the narrow gate and then to travel on the Lord’s pathway?”

"Responding to The Intolerance of the Tolerant"

THE CHALLENGE OF GRACIOUSNESS:  May we who have standards and convictions not be intolerant of the intolerant!  What a curious situation the public debate this week as those who accept almost everything reject Chic-Fil-A based upon a thought expressed by its founder.

The owner of Chic-Fil-A simply gave his position on the matter of marriage being as the Bible describes it, between one man and one woman.  Someone said that God established marriage between Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve and certainly he would agree with that idea.  Whether one agrees with it or not is not the issue.  How we disagree is in fact the concern.  Not so long ago the right was challenged with its need for graciousness in difference, now the left progressives need to hear the same admonition.

THE CHALLENGE OF BELIEFS EXPRESSED:  At question is that matter of one's right even responsibility to set forth his beliefs.  Certainly no one seems to object with those on the progressive side of the argument impose their notions but let the other side say something as benign as was said and there is an outcry but it does not end there.  Notice that there was to be a "kiss-in" as same sex couples demonstrate their "love" at Chic-Fil-A locations.

Chic-Fil-A being a privately owned company have not great responsibility to allow this sort of thing to go on however, since they seem to be gracious about this whole discourse I suspect that they will not take action.

THE CHALLENGE OF CONVICTIONS:  Such being so there are some things that we need to think about!  We who take a conservative view of the Scriptures must allow nothing to dissuade us from the position we take of the Scriptures.  The more that we are surrounded by the permissive message, the more those of us who hold to the Bible are placed in difficult even untenable positions.  Such is not so in reality only in perception.

The reality is that the same God who designed each of us in our uniqueness, also moved on righteous men of old to author the Bible.  Personally I do not find anywhere that I or anyone else is exempted from any of the Scriptures.  

There are those who would argue that the Christian's shortcomings are license for others to live outside the guidance of the Bible.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Certainly we all make mistakes but that in no way obviates others from their responsibilities.  In fact that is the value of being in a Christian community for in failure there we find support and care.  Then too there is the support to be found in prayer as we pray the Scriptures. 

THE CHALLENGE OF/TO THE CULTURE:  As alluded to earlier, there is a problem.  It is that we are so surrounded by the messages of the media and academia that we either consciously and rationally or without giving it much thought have come to embrace things that are not acceptable to God.  The drift from what is right and correct is so gradual that it is imperceptible.   However, think back a few years to what was acceptable and what was not.  

Of course the Bible is the same as it always has been.  It did not change but we did and in that course of that change we have reinterpreted the Bible to be what we want it to be. The outcome is as one post-modernist writer put it, “…we see the demise of personal definition, reason, authority. . . All intrinsic properties of the human being, along with moral worth and personal commitment, are lost from view...” (Kenneth Gergen, The Saturated Self)

Is it any wonder that people live largely insecure lives, without a sense of direction, a certain fatalism, and an inadequacy in and of themselves.  Perhaps that is why those who have followed along with culture are so threatened by those with conviction.

THE CHALLENGE OF GRACIOUSNESS:  As the business owner who made the statement regarding the family, let us take our stand wherever we are located but let us do so in wisdom.

Let us do so relationally and not with criticism and rejection

Let us do so graciously not returning evil and insult for evil and insult

Let us do so welcoming the person while disallowing the sin

Let us do so with understanding not condemning for that it is God’s to do.

Remember Jude’s command, “save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear…”  In other words, some we confront others we persuade over time but to all we in some form witness.  (Jude 23).