One Way Only

 

1 Samuel 7:3 And Samuel spake unto all the house of Israel, saying, If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange gods and Ashtaroth from among you, and prepare your hearts unto the LORD, and serve him only: and he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines.

One weekend a few years back, my oldest daughter, Katie, came running to me with an idea.  She wanted our family to throw sleeping bags into the car and take off for the day without deciding where we would go.  Mark surprised me by agreeing with her.  So, not wanting to be a spoil sport, I grabbed a towel, the tent and a change of clothes.  I left my makeup and hot rollers and jumped in the car with everyone and we headed off down the road.  We drove for hours in a direction we had never been, towards an unknown destination.  This wouldn’t sound so crazy if we had been in WV or even Florida, but here we were in Southern Brazil driving along without a clue as to where we were headed.

That evening we pitched our tent beside a lake near the ocean.  I didn’t sleep a wink for fear that some maniac would kill us in the middle of the night, so I tossed and turned while listening to the rain pelt the tent.  The sun eventually peeked over the horizon and thankfully, we had survived.  You would think we would have gotten the spontaneous adventure out of our systems by then, but the pioneer missionary husband that I married wanted to explore the surrounding area.  We had once prayed over these places before ever moving to Brazil, so now the names on a map were more than just locations, and Mark wanted to take a look at what we missionaries fondly refer to as “the need”. 

Once again, we found ourselves meandering through back roads and tiny towns trying to spot churches as we headed in the general direction of home.  After a while we decided that if we wanted to make it back home before dark we would have to stop sightseeing and get on the highway where we could make good time.  Mark punched in Lages to his Google Maps app on his phone and saw where we could take a short cut and be back on the main road to our farm.  If we had only known where it was going to take us, but the blue line on the phone didn’t show that we were headed for a small dirt road that was precariously dug out of the side of the highest mountain pass in our state.  I should have known when the pavement turned into dirt that we were in for trouble.   I remember looking through the clouds at some high mountain peaks while pointing and joking, “At least we won’t have to drive through those.”  How wrong I was.  That was exactly where we ended up.

You know something?  I think I have come far enough in life now that I can honestly say from experience; it never pays to take the easy road.  Let’s be truthful with ourselves here and not play games.  How many of us actually try and seek to obey every last word that God has written for us in the Bible?  Come on, don’t just give me a hasty, holier than thou answer, be honest.  We all try to smudge here and there to justify why we do some things and why we don’t do others.  We like those easy looking paths, but they always lead us to trouble.

Samuel was God’s man to deliver God’s Word to God’s people.  He didn’t sugar coat the message God had for them either.  He told them very plainly that if they truly wanted God’s help and deliverance from the Philistines, then they needed to return with ALL their hearts to the Lord, put away their secret gods and PREPARE their hearts unto the Lord and serve HIM. 

The word prepare in this verse means to stand up and set up in a direction. 

What direction are we truly headed?  Are we just placating our conscience by reading the Bible every morning and running through a list of prayer requests?  Or are we really seeking after God, preparing our hearts, pointing them in His direction?  If we are, then we aren’t looking for the easy way out, or a new interesting way towards Him. Do we have secret "gods" that we need to cast off?   We are to be hungering and thirsting after the One and True God, so are we? Let's point our hearts one way and one way only, TOWARDS God.

Our family made it through that mountain pass that day, but feared for our lives the entire time.  If you are trying to take the easy road in your Christian life, you know you are not living in freedom and peace.  And you know in your heart that you aren't communing with God the way He wants to commune with you.  The only way to fix it is to return to Him how He says to return, with your whole heart. 

Until Monday, Lord Willing,

Sheri