The Greatest Question I Will Ever Answer

It is amazing how many times we come to crossroads in our lives. I remember road trips my family would take as a child. I especially remember one time we were going through an unfamiliar town. The town was having a parade that day so there were detour signs directing us around the "main street" route. Unfortunately, those detour signs were few and far between so we came to many crossroads unsure which way we should go. We eventually made it through to the other side, but that illustrates for me today how our life often looks. We have events that happen and people we meet and choices we make that take us round about ways to where we originally intended to go. But the most important thing to remember is where we are headed. If we forget our destination we can easily end up somewhere entirely different from our original goal.

I think we can all relate to this. We start a job, thinking it only temporary until we can do what we really want to do...and end up retiring from that temporary job. We might look off the road and end up in a ditch. We play with fire (both literally and figuratively) and end up burned. We mean to serve God, then slowly our eyes wander and we start down a path we never even meant to step onto.

My husband says I can be a little bit stubborn. Okay, that's not the way he says it--it's probably more like I can be like a dog with a bone...and never let go. To be honest, my husband is such a nice guy that he really says the former, but I think he means the latter. :-) But this is an area in which I think it's a good thing to be stubborn. I am going to choose to serve God. It doesn't matter what detours come up, how many times I step off the path, how many times I get too close to the fire. I will always choose to turn back around, to get back on the right path, to douse out the flames. Because I have made that choice. For me, there really is no other.

I remember a friend one day asking me, "Carolyn, what if at the end of your life you find out it was all a joke? What if in the end that's all there is--the end?" I told Judy the same thing I would say today. If at the end I find out I was mistaken I will have lived a good life. I will have treated others well. I will have made mistakes, but been able to feel forgiven. I will have lived a good life. "But Judy, what if in the end we find out that God was there all along and you never chose Him. What will you have?"

What about you? Who will you serve?