Bumps on the path
Saturday 31st May
The little boy was helping his younger sister up a steep mountain path when she complained, ”This isn’t a path at all, it’s all rocky and bumpy.” The older brother smiled and said, ”Sure it’s a path, the bumps are to climb over.”
On our journey to the kingdom, we too, can sometimes think that the path is nothing but rocks and bumps. We need to remember that ”the bumps are to climb over.”
It was Jesus who told us that ”narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” From the viewpoint of the little girl and the world around us, it isn’t a path at all for most are looking for the broad way ”that leadeth to destruction.”
Jesus reminded us concerning the broad way that ”many there be which go in thereat.” The broad way always has a traffic jam on it while the way up to the Kingdom is narrow and uncrowded.
Which way are we going? How crowded is the way we are traveling? If we find that we are moving along with the world, we need to check our road map to make sure we haven’t made a wrong turn somewhere. This can happen so easily. One can get turned around and suddenly find themselves going in the exact opposite direction to their desired destination.
In our way of life, do we find that we are going and doing pretty much like our worldly neighbors and associates? If we discover that we are going and doing, playing and eating with those who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ something could be wrong. If we find that our talk is mostly about our work, our gardens, our homes, our automobiles and our sports and not about our hope and the promises of God, then it could be we have made a wrong turn. We had better pull off the road and check our bearings. Our road map is our Bible and we need te ask ourselves how often we refer to our guidebook of life. It is no use thinking we can find our own way for ”Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.”
Don’t worry about the bumps. We need them to climb up and over. They are essential to our development. Again it was our Lord who told us, ”He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations.” He reminds us that ”in the world, ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”
There has to be something to overcome or it is impossible to overcome. Be thankful that God, in His loving mercy, has promised us, through His son, that in the world we shall have tribulation; but in spite of this, we are to be of good cheer. Why? Because Jesus overcame and we can, too. Yes, our trials and troubles which might have been seen as problems are not really problems at all. They are simply opportunities for us to show God that we are climbers and these light afflictions are simply there for us to overcome and climb over on our way to the Kingdom.
Viewing it this way, we can join Paul in cheerfully saying, ”Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”