“Two roads converged in a yellow wood,
and sorry that I could not travel both…”
-Robert Frost
In my case it’s three roads. Three roads and then another one I’m calling “God’s Unexpected Fourth Option.” For the past few months I’ve had my relocation options whittled down to a solid three, and I’ve been going back and forth on where to go. Each city presents its own strengths and opportunities. Each has its own inherent interests for me, and each their respective challenges. And whenever I feel like I’ve made a decision, part of me starts to doubt whether I’m willing to give up on the other cities.
There are several lessons I’ve learned during my time in College Station concerning the will of God that have guided me during this decision-making process. More recently I’ve been learning about hope and wisdom. Hope is a word thrown around lightly in our culture. We “hope” a movie will be good, that we can wake up on time, that there won’t be any traffic. This “hope” is nothing more than an expression of our projected desires, and their fulfillment is anything but certain. Scripture often uses the word “hope” in a much stronger sense. It is used to refer to the anticipation of something certain, specifically, the return of Christ and the restoration of all things. Paul writes “Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5:2). He’s not saying “I hope that God will get glory!” God WILL glorify himself. His glory is the reason we even exist. His hope in the glory of God is confident enough to make him “rejoice” in it. Paul prays for the Ephesians, that “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened…you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the sains” (Ephesians 1:18). In 1 Thessalonians 5:8, he tells the believers to put on as a helmet “the hope of salvation.” Do Christians sit around saying “I hope I end up saved”? No. Paul is much more confident, as we see in the next verse: “For God has not destined us for wrath but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.” He greets Titus “in hope of eternal life” (Titus 1:2), and shortly after we see the greatest example of Christian hope, our “blessed hope”: “the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). Such things are anything but uncertain. Paul’s great hope was in the return of Christ, something he knew was sure to happen. It is hope because it enables us to see past the difficulties of this life. No matter how bad life may become, we know that its ultimate culmination is the return of Jesus to give us indestructable bodies, a new earth, and himself forever. Hope is not hot air.
Wisdom, I have found, is letting hope of the future govern how I live in the present. For example, how does the hope of eternal riches affect how I spend earthly riches? Is it not foolish to spend all my resources on things I can’t have after I die? Wisdom is to see the end of things. That’s why wise people are often depicted as older, because they understand the desires of youth and what will follow should they be pursued and carried out to fulfillment. A young person for example may act on sexual impulse and sleep with many people. A wise person would look ahead though and see the outcomes of such actions. In Psalm 73 (one of my favorites), Asaph is struggling with God, trying to understand why such wicked people seem to prosper while he, a God-fearing man, doesn’t. They are at such ease in their sinful lives. “But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task…” What helped him though? “…until I went into the sanctuary of God; then I discerned their end” (Psalm 73:16-17). Meditating in God’s presence, Asaph was comforted by a fresh realization of the end of sin. Sin may profit in this life, and as a Christian this can be very discouraging to watch. God does love you and has a wonderful eternity for you, but he may break you in this life to get you there. And we can only find comfort when we discern the end of the alternative. And that is the inherent joy of wisdom.
So how has this helped me in the relocation decision? God has given me help from Hebrews 11. After receiving the promise of a land for his descendants, it is said that Abraham was looking beyond that “to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). Speaking of the Israelites it says “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city” (Hebrews 11:13-16). For a decision like where to move, and thousands of others like it, the Bible doesn’t tell us the answer. I’m no closer to knowing which city I’m going to end up in than I was a couple months ago. But I care less. I’m less apprehensive. I’ve come to realize that I am more than where I live. Wherever I go, ministry will be there. And ultimately it doesn’t matter, because all of Christ’s descendants are moving to the same city (Hebrews 11:16), the heavenly city. I’ve learned to stop focusing so much on these earthly cities and instead on the one I know I’ll eventually end up in. And this gives me great comfort.
It is a cruel deceit to confuse God’s destination and God’s path. Life’s million little decisions should be guided by prayer, counsel, and wisdom. But the most important decision in life that makes everything else insignificant until addressed is what to do about this Jesus, who was crucified and risen to give those decisions any hope of being truly significant. And then when Christ has sealed us and given us hope of what is to come and the wisdom to know how to live now, thousands of blessings will come to us in the guise of choices. Don’t stress over them, for the road that splits into two will eventually converge again at a place called home.
So pick your blessings.
“And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.’”
-Genesis 1:29
