Robert Frost will always be remembered for "The Road Not Taken." Taking the road not taken requires something not required by those who take the road taken. Going where most would choose not to go always requires more resolve, a deeper commitment, and a greater vision of possibilities. The Frost poem always makes us see the uncommon road as the better road even though it is the harder and more uncertain road. No arguments here.
Yet, today as I sat in the sanctuary during a memorial service, I found myself thinking not of the road not taken, but the road taken. Each one of us chooses to travel the road on which we are constantly moving from birth to death. Perhaps, the road taken is the road not taken. Sometimes it is hard to see the difference while we are walking it. The road taken is one that carries us to and through some challenging moments. It takes us into our future, to the significant relationships in our life, into powerful overwhelming storms, to the place of choosing or not choosing faith in God, and finally toward the end of our days. It is like a ribbon that stretches, winds, moving us to and fro, up and down, constantly intersecting with unimaginable possibilities and unexpected others. None of us can see the end of the road and all of its choosing junctures from the beginning. It is the way that begins with faith and the one where faith is what gets us home.
As I sat there full of reflection, I found myself becoming aware of how it is that the journey is not about coincidence, but about God. Being given free will means that we will make some wrong decisions about the road taken. But, even when such happens, God has a way of bringing us to a place where the good still prevails and where hope is restored. I found myself thinking about others who journeyed making choices about roads taken or not taken. Abraham, Moses, Cleopas, and Paul were a few of those who came to mind. Actually, the road we travel is full of folks, who like you and me, are sometimes going forward and sometimes hardly moving, but always hoping that God is indeed out there taking us to a somewhere called home.
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