At the Crossroads
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. … Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him. ––Matthew 4:1, 10, 11
The San Juan River forms from snow melt in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, and meanders through the red desert of Navajo Country before converging with the Colorado River a couple hundred miles west. Where the San Juan makes a long lazy turn north lies the Four Corners area, where the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona converge. If you don’t mind assuming the Down Dog position, you can have a limb in each of the four states at once.
Wouldn’t it be cool if life’s crossroads were that clear-cut and clean? Unfortunately, however, things don’t align in perfect 90-degree angles like the state lines at the Four Corners. If we are brutally honest, crossroad decisions can be really hard and very confusing. Should I marry this person? Should I relocate for that job? Should I invest in this? Even without an enemy who is trying to makes things even more confusing, “big” life decisions—crossroad decisions that can alter the trajectory of your life—are rarely easy.
When you are standing at a crossroads ask yourself: is this decision driven by my immediate needs and impulses, or by what I ultimately know is the better way? Another question is whether or not this decision affects your loved ones at the expense of their welfare and well-being. And of course, the best question: Does the decision align with God’s Word? That’s our ultimate plumbline—that’s how we know whether a decision is plumbed at 90-degree angles.
In a desert not unlike the Four Corners area, Jesus was offered bread by the devil—after he’d been fasting for 40 days. Do you think He was hungry? Yet He denied His earthly appetite to sustain His heavenly purpose. In Jesus’ steadfastness, we find our posture for the crossroads. In the ultimate versus immediate battle, Christ instructs us to choose what endures, what elevates us from earthly inhabitants to eternal citizens. As you confront your own crossroad today, will you walk in the footsteps of the immediate, or will you look to Christ and set your path toward the ultimate?
Father, help me make excellent crossroad decisions that honor your ultimate plan.