The Road Less Taken

Each year I try to choose a "theme" verse for our school year - a focal point to guide our studies and direct our paths, to keep us on the right path, and moving toward our school's goal "Educating the Future for Eternity".  I've had a very hard time choosing one for this coming school year. Nothing has seemed to fit where we are, where we need encouragement, and where we are on this journey....until I read my devotion a few days ago. It fits. It is exactly what we all need to hear and know, but it is a very unusual choice.

As many of you know, we have had a very difficult year, and from what we can see now, that isn't going to change anytime soon. To be perfectly honest, I have been struggling with anxiety and depression in a way I never have. I have been struggling to trust and hope in anything during a time when very little is within my power to influence or control. For the first time, I am struggling to see positives in anything - and when I look at what needs to be done and decisions that need to be made, my first thought is "what is going to go wrong this time" and "who is going to fail us now".

Within our family, we have been struggling with failing attitudes - the bickering, selfishness, laziness, and unkindness has risen to new heights. To be fair, being pregnant weakens my tolerance, so much of this could be hormonal mis-perception, and add on the other stresses and that level is even lower. But, I find little joy in being with my family because it feels like a constant battle -- and I'm tired. It is easier to just let it all happen, to turn on the TVs, ignore the chores not being completed, and hide in my room with Netflix. Yet doing that heaps on more guilt and stress as it increases, children's hearts are hurt by their siblings' mean words, and we get farther and farther behind. 

So when I opened up Matthew 7 this week, and read verses 12-14, it stopped me in my tracks.

This passage in Matthew comes after reassurances of "Ask, and it will be given to you: seek and you will find" (v7). "Blessed are the...., for they shall....". "You are the salt of the world....You are the light of the world.", "Your father who sees in secret will reward you". We love these parts of the Sermon on the Mount. They are uplifting, hopeful, and make life seem easy. But most of this teaching is filled with:
"Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you..."
"If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out..."
"If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also...."
"Love your enemies...."
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth..."
"..first take the log out of your own eye...."

The Sermon on the Mount ends with the parable of the house on the rocks. The usual Sunday School focus is on how the house stands firm. We don't spend much time talking about the storm, the wind, the floods, and the rain.

It is verses 13-14, and the closing parable, that encapsulate the Sermon on the Mount. "..the way to life is hard, and those who find it are few". "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock".

The promises of life, blessings, and reward come because of  and through the persecution, the constant fight against sin, and the self-denial of revenge, comfort, ease, and wealth. Those blessings are never promised in this life, but are promised as "treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." (v20b-21)

Our theme verse for this year is not the most encouraging. It isn't one that is going to inspire a K-Love top 10 song. It isn't going to pack pews on a Sunday morning. But, it is necessary, and it is good, and it is real. The way to true life does not come through blessings, or rewards. It comes through weathering the storm, "work[ing] out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12),  being "poured out as a drink offering" (Philippians 2:17), and "lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith," (Hebrews 12: 1b-2a). 

We are choosing this year to take, in Robert Frost's words, "the road less taken". We are focusing on choosing the hard good things, instead of the easy popular things.  We want to study Latin conjugations, multiplication tables, logic and rhetoric, ancient mythology, biological systems, and systematic theology not for the jobs they may lead to, or personal interests, or college acceptances, but because they build a solid foundation in Christ, in right clear thinking, and wise decision making. We will choose kind words in humility, confession before accusation, and love over personal justice. We will choose to pursue the life of Life through the death of self.