Paths into the Land of the Lost
My husband and I spent last summer working out in our woods. We were cutting in a road along our boundary line. Now, this particular line happened to run through a very swampy area. It was dense and overgrown and required much effort to clean out. My hubby was the tree cutter and I was the “brusher”. My job was to haul the limbs and brush into the woods and off the newly made road. One day, as I was reflecting back on last summer’s work, I thought about the hard work the pioneers had when they first cleared this land that I had recently brushed. I was sure that I had sweat as much as they did back in the day!! I thought of those pioneers making such effort to initially clear this land and our efforts this past summer to make this road. I then made this kind of spiritual leap that often happens in my thought processes! I thought about the effort it takes to make roads into the land of the lost-paths into the lives of those precious people who don’t know Jesus as their personal Savior. There are obstacles, much like the trees we had cut, that stand in the way of getting into the land of the lost. There are rough spots that we must get through to make inroads into this land. Yet, just like our efforts to make a road through the swamp have results, so do our efforts to make paths to Jesus in the lives of the lost. I now get to look down into our woods and see a trail through what was once just a dense swamp. Sunlight now floods that area and will dry up some of that swampland. In the land of the lost, however, the rewards of showing the way to Jesus are much greater. They now have Light where once was only darkness and that Light shines in the darkness and makes the way clear; they are now on the road to heaven instead of hell. My sweat and effort to brush and make that road last summer left me tired to the bone but with a sense of accomplishment. My efforts at showing a lost person the road to Jesus has also left me tired to the bone, but with joy and praise for God who makes such a thing possible. Making roads into swamps and making paths to Jesus for a lost person take a great deal of effort, yet the end results are so different! One simply ends in another part of our woods-the other can change eternal destiny !! It caused me to wonder where I ought to be expending the most energy!
