Finding the Ancient Path

I spend a lot of time thinking about how to “walk in the Spirit.” How to walk what Jesus called the narrow path, and I often come to Jeremiah 6:16, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’”

Isn’t it interesting…the path we are looking for, the good way, the one that leads to rest…it isn’t a new path, it isn’t modern, but it is ancient. It is the same path Adam and Eve were supposed to walk and like the ones in Jeremiah, Adam and Eve and all of their children have said, “We will not walk in it.”

I was reading a poem by Robert Frost yesterday. We are all familiar with his poem, The Road Not Taken, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood” and he took “the one less traveled by.” That’s the ancient road in Jeremiah even if that isn’t necessarily what Frost had in mind.

But the poem I read yesterday is “God’s Garden”.

“God made a beatous garden

With lovely flowers strown,

But one straight, narrow pathway

That was not overgrown.

And to this beauteous garden

He brought mankind to live,

And said: ‘To you, my children,

These lovely flowers I give.

Prune ye my vines and fig trees,

With care my flowerets tend,

But keep the pathway open

Your home is at the end.’”

There in his first verse is God’s garden…a garden of fellowship; one straight and narrow pathway. It’s the path of Jeremiah…all the way back to Genesis.

But Frost has a second verse,

“Then came another master,

Who did not love mankind,

And planted on the pathway

Gold flowers to find…”

The enemy is always trying to pull us away from the ancient road. Environmentalists seek a better Earth, but ignore the only way is through the ancient path that will lead to a New Heaven and a New Earth. Political(ists) put their hope in one party or the other, ignoring the fact that only the King of kings will bring the peace and justice they desire. I could go on and on, but the ancient path is a Gospel path and it must involve the cross, the denial of self, and the following of King Jesus. Any other path is just a distraction.

Frost ends the poem with these words,

“O, cease to heed the glamour

That blinds your foolish eyes,

Look upward to the glitter

Of stars in God’s clear skies.

Their ways are pure and harmless

And will not lead astray,

Bid aid your erring footsteps

To keep the narrow way.

And when the sun shines brightly

Tend flowers that God has given

And keep the pathway open

That leads you on to heaven.”

((The picture above is the Great Wall in China. I took it the first year we visited there. Obviously, the ancient path goes further back than this, but it’s the oldest path I have in my picture file.))