CROSSROADS

                               “Stand at the crossroads and look;
                                                ask for the ancient paths,
                                ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
             
                                and you will find rest for your soul. 
                                                

                               “Set up road signs;
                                                put up guideposts.
                                Take note of the highway,
                                                the road that you take

     There comes a point I believe in all of our lives that we stand at the crossroads, two points in time and place where we make a crucial decision. This decision is almost always a hard one.  A hard one because most of the time we are in a place of being comfortable and maybe unwilling to change but perhaps there is a deeper calling or yearning inside that forces this decision.  
  Take for example the movie Castaway.   After being castaway for 5 or more years Tom Hanks ( the actor) portraying that man who is lost, seeks meaning and a deeper sense of life after suffering immense loss.  Unable to return to his love or his former life he returns a fed-ex package he had held with him on that deserted island and finds the address and places it on the door step and leaves.  Ironically on the package are two depicted angel wings. Driving away the scene shifts upward and a vista of plains and of roads crossing and then long nothingness.  Unable to decide which way to go he gets out of his car and stands at the crossroads trying to decide which way to go, and then he meets some stranger a woman, casually talks and then watches her drive away and on the back bumper there shown are angel wings!  First on the package, second at the farm he delivered the package to and third on the truck these wings appeared to him.
    Needless to say he has found that the decision may be divine or so implied and heads in the direction of the stranger and we leave the movie with a sense of completeness.
     Oh! if only life's decisions were as easy at that!  In Christ I think we all get a chance to stand at some crossroad and ask the question, which way now? And why?  If we are those who trust in a God that showed himself incarnate and then rose from the dead for us then we can also believe that he can lead us in the paths he wants us to travel on.  The lines of scripture above tell us to "seek the ancient paths where the good way is." and walk in it.  The Israelites often marked their way with stones and they were not to be removed so that passing generations would see the way their ancestors came.  It was for a reason.    The times God had shown himself faithful to the nation and people he had chosen for himself  they then responded with the only thanksgiving they could with landmarks to remind them of former things.  Because they could forget.  
   It would always point to the way they had come. 
     Today we can be led of the Holy Spirit and sometimes it is not so easy to follow, either because we are settled (Or Not) and change comes harder than no change at all.   
       If we stay were we are we run the risk of stagnation like a slow pool of water with little or no movement.  Things grow and not necessarily good things.  I think God keeps up moving.  Think Caleb  and Joshua, old men who never stopped until they literally passed on at ages above 100 years but were still vigorous.  That's what I want too.
     So I stand at the crossroads like Tom Hanks, and I wait... to see which way to go. Go, I must.