Crossroad Choices

When we read that Word which says, "Thus says the Lord:  Stand at the crossroads..."  (Jeremiah 6:16), it should go without saying that crossroads are strategic.  The journey is often forever changed by the choices made at the crossroads of our life.  And while the crossroads that Jeremiah envisioned as he wrote, or spoke to the Hebrews may have been a geographic one, we know that some crossroads are not nearly as distinguishable as those where four roads come together.  The poet talks about "two roads diverge in a yellow wood" but crossroads present us with multiple choices.   It is not surprising that the Word of God calls us to stand still in such moments.  

When we stand at the crossroads, we are at the threshold of something important and life changing.  I remember the testimony of E. Stanley Jones, a great missionary evangelist of the last century, who in his book "The Song of Ascent"  spoke of the choices before him as he graduated from Asbury College.  Someone was telling him God wanted him to teach at the college.  Another voice said God wanted him to go to Africa.  Choices abounded in that crossroad moment of his life.  Jones wrote about kneeling to pray and getting up saying to God, "It's India."  And, without looking back he left that crossroad of choices to serve God for a lifetime in the land of India.  There was no going back, only forward into the road he knew God had chosen for him.     

It is about this kind of crossroad that Jeremiah spoke.  When God brings us to a place of opportunity, it is important to stop and find out what God is about.  Otherwise, we are likely to make choices which will bring regret into our life as well as a sense somewhere up the road that we have gotten off course.  Nothing is more important than living in sync with the will of God.  Knowing where He is leading is imperative not only in the major decisions of our life, but also in the ones which seem to us in the moment to be of the ordinary variety.  Standing in stillness in those moments is the only way to know with confidence what choice God is calling us to make.  When we rush along as if there is nothing strategic or important about a crossroad moment, we end up out of step with the plan our Creator God has for us.