Paths.

I was thinking about Matthew 7:14. My son read it to us this afternoon and the images of the wide path to destruction and the narrow path to life have been cycling through my thoughts ever since. There are many obvious applications.

The wide path is crowded, masses following masses, not brave enough to step out and be different. 

The wide path allows for all appetites, with many temptations which are eagerly eaten up. 

The narrow path hedges you in, with little wiggle room inside God's perfect law that leads to righteousness. 

The narrow path gives no room for veering around obstacles. They must be faced head on for our maturity and growth. 

The wide path is easy, while the narrow is hard and few choose to follow it. Fewer still stay the course once they're on it. 

A word came to mind in reference to the wide path that will only destroy us.

Avoidance.

I can picture myself walking that path, sidestepping anything that makes me uncomfortable or asks to much of me. I see myself taking wide circles around pain and bowing out of situations that might hurt, but cause me to grow. Avoidance. On the wide path, we can avoid accountability, correction, and responsibility. We can choose to run from consequences. We can avoid truth and change it to what feels good, which is why sometimes the wide path looks strangely like a good place. A holy place. But avoiding truth and replacing it with one more comfortable is not holiness. It's avoidance, among other dangerous things.

Then I can picture the narrow path. There is no room for avoidance. When pain comes, we must wade through it. When responsibility arises, we have no choice but to rise and face it. Accountability is a given because we are living in 'tight quarters', walking a path so close that we are rubbing shoulders with one another, instead of avoiding uncomfortable conversations. Consequences for actions must be faced. There are no wide circles around sorrow. There is no opportunity to sidestep because we are hedged in by God's Word. Everything that comes at us must be faced head on.

And we are better for it. We are real, authentic, whole. We aren't avoiding and hiding and copping out. We produce life giving words because we've lived. We can be vessels of hope because we've had to rely on God's peace to sustain us. We know pain, so we can offer encouragement.

Avoidance is easier. It is more comfortable for the moment.

But only by living life can we gain it. We must be willing to face the truth and the pain and the shoulder rubbing to get to the joy and the grace and the hope.

The wide path leads to destruction and has no purpose, except to indulge in momentary pleasures. The narrow path is life lived fully... avoiding no thing that would draw us closer to Him. On the narrow path, your vision is singularly focused on His face. And you run like mad to get to Him, through whatever comes.