Taking the Road Less Traveled

First published in The Daily Sentinel, Friday, Aug. 1, 2008


Did you ever study the famous Robert Frost poem written in 1920 called “The Road Not Taken”? It was part of my high school literature class. We had to find all kinds of deep meaning in the poem’s lines:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Of course, the simple meaning is that each of us have choices before us that are equally inviting, and we should not regret the choices we make once we make them. A deeper meaning is that there are some choices that take us away from the majority, and those choices are often superior to “crowd think.” (But of course, don’t tell that to media producers. TV and movie executives would prefer to attract the masses with banality than make higher quality, but less lucrative offerings.)

But last week I discovered a new application of this poem: my daughter just got her driver’s license. You better believe that I’m encouraging her to take the roads less traveled as she gets used to being behind the wheel! Most kids her age have already had their driver’s licenses for as much as three years, but we took the less travelled route and didn’t pursue the license until she truly needed to have it. Truth is, in Racine, she could get everywhere she needed to go by walking or riding her bike. Now that we’re somewhere else, the car is much more necessary.

Along with the driver’s license comes the need for insurance. I was prepared for our insurance costs to go up, but I’m glad I was sitting down when I heard the first quote! Adding our newly licensed driver more than doubled our monthly premium. That’s rough!! So I didn’t stop at my first quote, I shopped around. I took the other path and didn’t stop until I found an insurance carrier who would raise our premiums by only $23 per month. You better believe I won’t be going back to that first way!

But all these roads and choices and costs brought me back to how we respond to God. What choices do we make when it comes to God? Are all choices equally valid? Can we go back and try again if the path turns out to be a dead end?

Of course, the answers depend on the particular faith perspective of the persons making them. A Buddhist, for example, would say “yes” to the “trying again” question; that’s the whole point of reincarnation. A Christian might also say “yes” to that question, but mean something very different. For a Christian, “trying again” refers to the forgiveness we receive from God every time we confess our bad decisions to God. But once this life is over, there is no going back; your time is up.

I know there is much popular appeal to the idea that all religions are simply different paths to the same destination. After all, we reason, who are we to judge a person’s faith? Isn’t that up to God? Well, yes it is. And that’s precisely the point at which the argument breaks down. God DID choose one path. And that path was promised to a man named Abraham, passed through a reluctant leader named Moses, travelled on through a poet/shepherd/warrior/king named David, was challenged, amplified, and renewed through prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, and finally was completed through Jesus Christ – God Incarnate.

All of this was God’s choice, not ours. That’s why Jesus made the exclusivist claim in John 14:6: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Were it not for Jesus Christ, no one could get to God. His choices in life, his death, and his resurrection all paved the way, bridged the chasm, opened the door to an eternal relationship with God. Once done, there was no going back to any other way.

I encourage you to get on the road with God – no matter what anyone else thinks about that decision. I promise that you will find the road that makes all the difference!