Note: On Tuesdays, you can find me at Your Daily Tripod, owned by my friend TonyD. A longer version of the post below appears there.
You kind of wonder about God sometimes. In today’s first reading from Genesis 13, He tells Abram all about how blessed he’s going to be and
numerous his descendants will be. Read that in tandem with the Gospel reading today from Matthew 7 about how constricted the road to life is, and your first reaction might be, for what? Seriously, what’s the point of all those descendants if so few are going to find the gate to the Lord? What kind of a loving God does that to His people?
Perhaps the better question is what kind of people do that to a loving God… and themselves. You see, it’s not God who makes the road to life so difficult. We do that to ourselves. We seek immediate gratification over patience and faithfulness. We embrace the temptations of the evil one, fully recognizing them for what they are. We figure God will understand… or we’ll make up for it later. If rationalization were a true gift, most of us would be abundantly blessed.
Why not take the road the Lord has so clearly marked for us, even as we and He acknowledge it is the one less traveled by, to borrow a phrase from Robert Frost? Why muddy up the path with darkness and fear and regret? Why make the journey more arduous and lonely than it has to be? We might not have as many companions on the constricted road… but we will have the One we need.
