Friday, March 8, 2013

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

   
     Nearly 45 years ago, when I was going to high school, I came across a poem in an American Literature class that I was taking that has stayed with me through the years.  Robert Frost's, 'The Road Not Taken' caught my attention; especially the last three lines of the entire Poem:

       " Two roads diverged in a wood; and I
I took the road less traveled by, 
and that has made all the difference  "

  This puts me in mind  of something that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, said in the Sermon on the Mount.  In Matthew 7: 13,14 He said:  

"Enter ye in at the straight gate; For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because straight is the gate, and narrow the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." 

  So, you can see that according to the Lord Jesus, it is a matter of critical importance what road we take in life.  If we are going the way of the crowd, we are going done the wrong road..no question about it.  In each life, another path will appear...The road less traveled.  God has a special purpose for each life, and it will take seeking and searching in order to find it.  The path that the world presents will speak to us in a voice so loud that we might miss the less traveled path.  God tells us in ISAIAH 30:21, 

"And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying, this is the Way, walk ye in it;  when ye turn to the right hand; and when ye turn to the left"

   So God speaks to us in a 'still small voice' which we can hear if we will listen for it.  However, there is a danger of being distracted by the loud clamorous voice that the world speaks to us in.
   Just recently, I was captivated by another piece of poetry that speaks about the 'untrodden way'.  William Wordsworth wrote about Lucy, who "dwelt among the untrodden ways" Wordsworth goes on to say that Lucy was a solitary person who shone as the only star in the sky.  She was the type of person, that when she 'ceased to be' hardly anybody knew.  But her life made a difference to at least one person.
"She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were few to praise
And very few to love;
A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the Sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh, 
The Difference to me!"
     God has a purpose for our lives, and if we will seek out the Road Less Traveled, and seek to go down the untrodden way, our lives can have purpose, meaning.   We may not have the celebrity of others but our lives can touch and make a difference to some.
  

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