Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6 NIV
We were lost, and from the bars on all of the store windows we were in one of the not so great sections of Philadelphia. And it was getting dark. My Mother had come with me to Philly for a work conference I was attending, and we had decided to go out for Chinese food for dinner. I should probably mention here that we are a little directionally challenged. If someone gives us directions and says, “It’s so easy, you won’t be able to miss it!” you better believe we will find a way to miss it! In fact earlier that day, my mother had dropped me off at the conference, and while just trying to get back to our hotel room, had made a wrong turn that sent her over a bridge into New Jersey!
We had started the evening by searching for one Chinese restaurant near us and using our GPS had gotten there. That restaurant did not have the orange chicken, dripping with that tangy orange glaze that we were in the mood for so we decided to try again with one of the many Chinese restaurants in the area. The second restaurant didn’t seem that clean, but there was another restaurant 3 minutes away… next thing we knew we were in a seedy-looking area of Philly, where every restaurant and convenience store had bars over the windows. On top of that it was getting dark.
We tried using the GPS to get back to the first restaurant we stopped at- general Tso’s would be just fine instead of orange chicken- but the ramp we needed to get on to get back to our hotel was, and this may sound weird; blocked by a king size mattress across the road. Why was there a king size mattress on the road? We didn’t know but given the roads, we decided it was better to try another way than to try to get out and move it. Perhaps other people felt the same and that accounted for why a mattress was still on the road! Eventually, we were able to get back on track and we ended the night eating our chinese food, in the safety and comfort of our hotel room!
This work situation has a lot of parallels to our spiritual life too! Take David for example: He was the man after God’s own heart, but he sure messed up along the way. He started off strong in his faith, rightfully giving God all the glory for the defeat of Goliath. He went into battle and gave God all the glory, he spared King Saul when he had the chance to harm him because Saul was God’s anointed king over Israel. Then David decided to stay home from a battle, perhaps he should have gone… Instead, he committed adultery, and instead of confessing what he had done, he furthered his sin by committing murder.
Just like that David had veered off the path and was way in the weeds. God sent the prophet Nathan to call out David in his sin. David had two choices: he could confess and repent, or like Saul he could have hardened his heart and deny his wrongdoing. Thankfully David confessed his wrong and got back on the right track.
We all face this same choice in our lives. We are human, making mistakes and finding ourselves in sin is going to happen. But when it does we can either confess and repent, or we can deny our sin, but denying our sin won’t bring us closer to God, instead it will drive us further apart, and like my mother and myself in Philly we will find ourselves making wrong turn after wrong turn, getting further away from God’s goodness and grace. However, if we repent, and get back on the right track, then we will find ourselves growing closer again to our heavenly father and the comfort of our Eternal Home.
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