Is it really a fork?

Years ago, while following my handy-dandy, trusty GPS late one foggy night on a KY backroad, the path split.  The GPS told me to go in one direction, but my “gut” said go the other.  I followed my GPS.  After winding through the narrow road, which seemed to get narrower and foggier as I drove, the directions from my GPS eventually led me to a metal gate at the entrance of a cow field.  In newfound wisdom, I thought to myself, “This GPS is wrong.”  Lesson learned: never assume your GPS is always right. 

We have all found ourselves at the proverbial “fork in the road,” when a decision needs to be made but we have more than one option.  How do we know the will of God when facing decisions in life?  Do we simply follow our GPS?  Could it be that we flip a coin?  Or maybe we just go with our “gut” feeling. There actually is a better option.  Scripture is not silent about these “forks in the road.”    

The wisdom of King Solomon offers us guidance when facing decisions in life.  He urges, “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 your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6, NASB).  I am afraid that all too often we make the “will of God” out to be some mystery that He hides from us, only revealing it to us if we say or do the right things—that is, pick the correct fork in the road.   

To trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not lean on our own understanding and acknowledge Him in all our ways is another way of saying, “walk faithfully with God.”  God’s promise for a straight path—a successful, agreeable, right path, is only after we are careful to trust in Him.  God’s greatest concern in our lives is not whether we buy this car or that car, whether we move here or there, or take this job or that job.  Rather, God’s greatest concern is that we fully rely on Him, that we live our lives in submission to Him. 

God is after our lives, not simply the decisions we make with our lives.  He wants us wholly devoted to Him, and in being so, He will make our paths straight. In other words, God is more concerned about the journey along the path than He is the particular choice on the path.  Lesson learned: let’s not be as focused on the “fork in the road” as we are on His work in our lives along the road.  It’s a journey along the path more than it is a “fork in the road.”