It’s easy to get turned around on a road full of “signs”
Late on a Sunday night, I left the community in south Mississippi where I had recently been hired as an associate pastor. The route to my home in Ft. Worth, TX was clear in my mind: Go North on highway 98 toward Hattiesburg; continue on to Jackson; turn left past I 20 toward Dallas/Ft. Worth; end up on the West side of Ft. Worth – home sweet home, for a few more days.
Arriving at Jackson about midnight, I decided to spend the night and leave at 6:00 am. I found a motel on the left, stopped and registered for the night. Full of excitement at the prospect of seeing my wife in a few hours, I left the motel and drove under the overpass and turned left – toward Meridian, MS. I knew I was to go through Vicksburg on the way to Dallas/Ft. Worth. I knew the sun comes up in the East, not the West. Every road sign said E. I-20. There were two mistakes messing me up: I had passed under I-20 the night before and it just “felt” right.
After driving happily along for about an hour, I “came to my senses.” This is wrong, wrong, wrong!
Wisdom in Proverbs
The Proverbist wrote about this sort of dilemma thousands of years ago:
“There is a way which seems right to a man,
but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 14:12)
“The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
but a wise man is he who listens to counsel.” (Proverbs 12:15)
Not quite so long ago, a popular song asked the question: “How can it be wrong, when it feels so right?”
Sadly, the world is moving in the direction spoken of by the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah.
“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20-21)
One might add, without fear of “adding” to the exact meaning of the Scriptures, “Woe to those who call the unnatural natural and the natural unnatural!”
The inevitable truth remains, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” It is time for the Church to arise and fearlessly proclaim The Way that IS right as opposed to the “way that seems right.”
