“For by grace are ye saved through faith …” (Ephesians 2:8; KJ21).
For centuries … parents, poets, politicians, philosophers, teachers, preachers, psychologists, and writers have walked others down the descriptive and analytical pathways of life using the road as a metaphor for life, being a road. These varied helpers have tried to help others navigate their own roads by offering insights and advice on the difficulties of the roads being both considered and traveled by those following them. Warnings have been issued and warnings have been ignored. Advice has been offered and advice has been cast aside like unneeded excessive baggage on these many and varied roads, called life.
There seems to be in the heart of all human beings, a sense of stubborn ignorant, selfish, and rebellious determination to walk down roads of our own choosing. We walk by the warning signs of experience; we shrug off the concern of those who would help us and we fail to consider the timeless advice from our God just because we want to go our own way on the roads that we want to walk down.
These are the roads of lust, coveting, greed, desire, roads of pride, and unconcern. Roads of power and self-absorption. Ancient ill-advised treacherous roads that seem new and fresh only because we are foolish and unwise in believing we are better equipped than the myriads of those tripped up on these dangerous pathways. How utterly vain and ridiculous we as human beings can be! How desperately we need a Savior with an endless supply of grace!
What a blessed reality, it is to find a Savior with such amazing grace on the rebellious roads we may have traveled throughout the days of our lives. the grace of God is a patient grace that knows every detail of our foolish journeys that ended at the cliff sides of destruction but catches us as we fall. It is an immense and powerful grace, that intervenes to stop us from harming ourselves and others through the mysterious and miraculous presence of a Savior who uses people, places, and things to help us. It is a welcome and inviting grace that redeems our choice of roads, again and again.
It was grace that redeemed an adulterous David and proud Saul on their poorly chosen roads, and it will be grace that will redeem each of us on our roads of life, as well. Thanks be to God for the Savior that meets all of us on our ill-advised and badly chosen rebellious roads in life!
Image – Tobias Brunner, Pixabay Domain Free