This week's devotion is entitled:
"You can enter God's Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose the easy way. But the gateway to life is small, and the road is narrow, and only a few ever find it."
~Matthew 7:13-14 (NLT)
For those of you who don't know me very well, I LOVE the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I am currently reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which is possibly my favorite book in the series, and the other day as I was reading a certain part stuck out to me. Eustace, the cousin of the Pevensies, had snuck off from the rest of the Dawn Treader crew and climbed a mountain to take a rest. On the way back down it was foggy, and Eustace was afraid that he had come down the wrong side of the mountain. He finally made it down, and this is what he saw when the fog cleared: "Apparently he had by amazing luck found the only possible way down--a long green spit of land, horribly steep and narrow, with precipices on either side."
Has that ever happened to you in your life? You got lost, or got frustrated, or got confused trying to accomplish a goal or get out of a bad situation. Have you ever thought about the fact that you made it out of those situations, and with God's help, probably made it out the only safe (or only possible) way? God works in mysterious ways, and he knows how to guide us through the rough times in our lives. Like Eustace found his way through the fog, we can find our way out of any situation if we simply follow God.
Salvation works the same way. We can only make it to Heaven if we let God guide us (and follow Him willingly and dilligently) down the narrow (and only safe) path. This week I want you to think about ways in which you wander from the path, as we all do, and how the consequences of that could be bad for you.