Some crooked roads have I seen . . .

“In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
-Proverbs 3:6

I’m not going to tell you life as a Christian is easier than it was as an unbeliever. It’s not. A lot of preachers out there are telling you that Jesus wants to make you rich and powerful and take away all of your problems. He doesn’t. We worship a homeless guy who was murdered. I’m not sure how that translates into wealth for us.

The Christian life is hard. It’s a lot harder in some parts of the world than in others. In America we don’t often see real persecution, not like in other countries. A lot of the difficulty we see is the struggle within ourselves, the conflict through which we become more like Christ. The Lord disciplines His children (Hebrews 12:6), much like a good parent disciplines his own, and pain often comes into our lives with the purpose of driving out sin.

So I’m not going to tell you, “Come to Jesus and have a life filled with flowers and money and hot women.”

I will say this: the life of a Christian is often a lot more clear. In the words of this verse, it is straight.

Because let’s be honest, many of the messes we get into in life are because of sin. We are caught in a lie, we get our girlfriend pregnant, we steal, we start yelling at people in traffic, we demand respect from everyone, we get into wars with coworkers over small misunderstandings. Everywhere we turn there is a reason to get angry, demanding, lustful, and upset.

Or, in those cases, we can turn to God and obey Him. If someone gets angry at us, we lean on Him and let it go. If something goes wrong at work, we trust Him to work it out. We believe in His purposes, His plans, and His means, not our own. Our own plans fail almost every time, but His never do. So why would we get upset? Why would we get anxious? Why would we react badly. In all cases we would praise the Lord, for we know He will work all things for our good (Romans 8:28).

Do you see how our paths will be straightened? When we focus on God, it is not that bad things do not happen to us, because they do. It is only that the bad things will not turn us to the left or to the right. We are at peace, even in a fallen world, and even when terrible things happen.

We will feel these things. We will still cry. We will still hurt. It will still be hard, yes. But like Jesus did, we can still believe God is guiding us, even when it hurts.

What happens if we do turn from the path? What happens when we get distracted by something, when we are not guided by God in that moment? Well, that is the very reason Jesus died. We have all sinned. We have all stepped off that path. But Jesus paid the price for our sin when He died, and if we repent and believe in Him, we will be forgiven.

It is not our own ability that keeps us on the path, but the Holy Spirit. We cannot earn our way into heaven. We have all sinned. It is only through Jesus that we can return to God. Repent and believe, and you will see that straight path again, the one that leads to life.