Two Ways, One Choice

Thursday after Ash Wednesday

Deuteronomy 30:15-20 / Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4 and 6 / Luke   9:22-25

Two Ways, One Choice

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I…

— Robert Frost

Lent summons us to a fork in the road and prompts us to ponder: Are we headed to life and prosperity or to death and despair? As in the reading from Deuteronomy, God sets before us a choice and urges us: Choose life!

The choice of Lent is more significant than the one that lies before the poet standing in a yellow wood, contemplating two seemingly equally valid paths where one might regret not being able to travel both. In Lent we wrestle with our very own selves and seek to be true to the way God made us, trying to avoid the dead ends and detours.

It’s not as if we’d be happy taking either way. While there are two ways here, there is really only one viable choice. Lent brings us face to face with that choice: the way of the cross or the way of death; the way of light or the way of darkness; the way of service or selfishness; good or evil; heaven or hell; faith or faithlessness. You choose. You must choose.

·         What does choosing life look like for you? What are the end results? What are the steps that take you there? What does choosing death look like for you? What are the end results? What are the steps that take you there? Ask God to help you choose life.