A day out with the family is always a treat. I remember as a kid, we’d bundle into the car and head off somewhere. Sometimes we knew where, but other times we’d have to ask. Mum would say, ‘It’s a mystery tour.’ And sometimes it seemed to be as much a mystery to them as it was to us.
Life can feel a lot like that, can’t it? We’re going somewhere, but where? A lot of the time, we’re thinking about the journey itself. ‘Is my life going well? It is just a bit too hard?’
But when we know where we’re heading, it makes even a hard journey worth it.
Would we really want a life that’s easy if it’s leading to a dreadful destiny?
But Jesus says that’s what most people choose. In the Sermon on the Mount, He says, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and board is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the read that leads to life, and only a few find it,’ (Mtt 7:13-14).
Jesus says that having an easy life (without opposition from Satan or his followers) means you’re headed the wrong way: to destruction. But if your destiny is eternal life, that’ll be a hard, narrow road.
And it’s important to notice that there is no third way. Nowhere does the Bible suggest that there’s another option. It’s not that the really good people are on the narrow road, and the bad ones are on the broad road, and most of us will find out at the end where we were going. Either we are on the narrow road to heaven or we are on the broad road to hell.
What a disaster it would be for our lives to be easy and fun, but to end in that ongoing spiritual destruction Jesus warns us about!
Is it possible to enjoy life here (despite its griefs and hardships) and to enter in to the life Jesus promises?
The fact that Jesus promises it proves that we can: We can have that satisfying eternal life that can only be found in Jesus. The Bible calls that being ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’. Isn’t that what you want? It’s hard to imagine someone who doesn’t want happiness. But as we look at what God tells us about being happy or blessed, we’ll realise that it’s so much deeper than the happiness we go looking for on our own.
God tells us how to have a satisfying, happy and eternal life. So, how can we know if that’s the life we’re living? Which way are you going?
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