Taking Different Paths Through the Woods and Following God’s Will

“Mom, follow me,” Samuel said, as he ducked below a tangle of branches too low for me to crawl underneath. Gray autumn clouds covered the sky like a sheet and the steady drip of branches filled the woods like music. The air around me felt damp, heavy with moisture, and I could feel the frizz from my hair sticking to my neck. I was starting to get sweaty.

“Samuel, I don’t think I can follow you under there,” I replied. I elected to walk through a small grove of fir trees with mangy branches that stuck out like wheel spokes. I gently moved them to the side and hoped a wolf spider wouldn’t decide to crawl from his home among the bark and onto my arm. I spotted Samuel on the other side of the tangle of branches and picked my way through the ferns over to where he stood waiting for me.

“I know the best ways to go,” he said. “It’s okay for you to follow me.”

“I believe you, buddy,” I replied, “but sometimes I can’t follow you because I’m too big. I’ll try to follow you, and if I can’t, I’ll catch up with you when I can.” And he was off again, skirting the edge of a marshy area that sat right in the middle of the forest filled with tall grasses and cattails.

Proverbs 14:12 says,

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.

God brought this verse to my mind as Samuel and I walked through the forest on that autumn day a few weekends ago. I don’t think any of our paths through the woods would have led to our misfortune, but it did strike me that Samuel’s ways were not my ways. I couldn’t always follow where he led, and he didn’t want to follow where I led, because he knew his way so well along his own paths. Neither of us was following a well-worn footpath (although at times one of us could have been following a frequented deer trail) so neither of us knew the best way forward. We chose the ways that looked best to us and hoped that we would soon find ourselves standing on the mossy banks that bordered the beach, looking out across the still water of the lake.

Praise the Lord that the path of wisdom is not hidden from those who love him! Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” When I lean on God’s understanding instead of my own, he makes my paths straight; what once wound around marshy areas and underneath tangled branches becomes a line stretched out before me. I can’t necessarily see where I’ve been or where I’m going, but I do know the way to my destination, which in a here-and-now sense means God’s will for my life, and in an eternal sense means heaven and then the new heavens and the new earth. And, God’s will for my life (and your life) is found in the Scriptures: first, to love God, and second, to love others. ¹

Loving God and loving others, however, looks different depending on the gifts God has given you, your vocation, and your stage in life. I like to show my love for God by singing his praises in the songs I write, and then sharing them with my family and my students. My sister, however, can’t really carry a tune. She likes to show her love for God by studying the Bible and writing down what she learns, and then sharing that with her family and the women in her Bible study group. My mom likes to show her love for God through hospitality. She decorates her home with cozy pillows and twinkly lights, and then invites family and friends over to eat her delicious homemade meals. My students show their love for God by learning as much as they can about him at school, and then applying that knowledge as they do their schoolwork to the best of their God-given abilities.

Samuel and I took different routes thorugh the forest, but they both brought us to our desired destination. We had one goal–to get to the beach–but we found different ways to acheive that goal. The paths that Samuel chose fit his size better than mine, and the paths that I chose fit my size well. I suppose you could say that loving God and loving others is not a one-size-fits-all formula. We all can show our love for God by growing in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control ²; but, patience with whom? self-control with what? joy despite which life circumstances?

So our ways, as human beings born in sin and naturally rebelling against God, lead to death; God’s ways, and his will for our lives in Christ, lead to life. That life in Christ, however, causes each of us to choose different paths, depending on who we are in Christ. Mark 16:15 says, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The world needs Christians to spread the gospel in varying vocations, career paths, and locations. Despite our different paths, our end goal is the same: to love God, love others, and then to spend eternity with Jesus, serving him and praising him in perfect fellowship with other believers, “working together, forever, for good.” ³

We are “not home yet,” as the song says, but someday our paths here on earth will end, and just like coming upon a beach at the edge of the forest, our eternal lives will stretch out before us, sparkling and twinkling in the light of God’s love like the rising sun on the water, beckoning us to come further up and further in to taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

1. Matthew 22:34-40 ↩
2. Galatians 5:22-23 ↩
3. The Gray Havens, “Not Home Yet” ↩