How to Recognize the Good Way

Jeremiah 6:16 (NIV)

16 This is what the LORD says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;

ask for the ancient paths,

ask where the good way is, and walk in it,

and you will find rest for your souls.

But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

Ask for the ancient paths.

Ask for the good way and walk in it.

It is a strange thing that the Lord would need to command us to ask for the good way. None of us desires what seems bad. Even if some might opine that our direction in life is not good, for us who choose it, it seems right. It seems good. But we are reminded that what seems good and right is not always so.

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

(Proverbs 14:12, ESV; also Proverbs 16:25)

Like the blind leading the blind, we are oblivious to our natural inclination to take the hard road. If we do not confess our ignorance of the good way, so we pause and ask God to lead us in the crossroads of life, we will find ourselves skipping and singing merrily into a resounding Hell.

The Lord has prepared a way that leads to something beautiful. However, our spiritual nemesis has prepared a few paths of his own. These paths of destruction are lined with vibrant colors of a distorted self-love. The hard path begins with birds chirping, the sun shining, and the breeze blowing, but the path of self-love has been distorted into a love for oneself that extends above all others. Once we head down the trail of elevating our desires and agenda above the needs of others, we can be certain we are no longer on the good way.

The path that seems right is so alluring, while the good way is plain. It is simple. The good way is ascetic, where we are called to discipline our desires to be set aside for the good of others. We live to serve the Lord, who calls us to love our neighbors, elevating their well-being over our own, and to pray for our enemies.

At every crossroads in life, there will be a good way but also a way that seems right to us. It will feel right. However, we must be aware of how easily we can be deceived; otherwise, we will be like the enchanted flight of a moth, entranced by the glow of a burning fire. But if we pause in humility, reminding ourselves that our wisdom limits us to only seeing the wrong roads, and ask God where the good way is, He will lead us forward on a path that may start in mundane asceticism but will become more beautiful every day.

Prayer: Lord, let me lean not on my own understanding, pausing at the crossroads, and ask You to guide me. Amen.

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