DAILY DEVOTIONAL – June 10, 2020
“The Road Home“
Prayer: Heavenly Father, we confess that we have all wandered away in our sin and rebellion against You. Without Your amazing grace and mercy, without the salvation You have provided freely in the blood of Your Son Jesus, we would be lost and wandering forever without You. Thank you Lord for Jesus, who is the Way and the Truth and the Life. Amen.
Scripture: John 3:31-36
“31 He who comes from above is above all. He who is of the earth belongs to the earth and speaks in an earthly way. He who comes from heaven is above all. 32 He bears witness to what he has seen and heard, yet no one receives his testimony. 33 Whoever receives his testimony sets his seal to this, that God is true. 34 For he whom God has sent utters the words of God, for he gives the Spirit without measure. 35 The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand. 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”
Devotional – “The Road Home”
Wabush is a small fishing town in an extremely remote portion of Labrador, Canada. Labrador – a vast, undeveloped, Christmas-tree-shaped area a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle – was completely isolated for most of its existence, with no route or road at all leading in or out of it. For decades, Labrador’s coast was accessible only by ferry, and the two inland towns, one of which was Wabush, weren’t connected at all. The only way between them was by snowmobile, dogsled, or foot. That changed starting in the early 1980s, when construction on the Trans-Labrador Highway began. The road was supposed to knit the province together in order to ease transportation, make the cost of importing goods cheaper, and hopefully attract some tourists. When the last stretch of the highway opened in 2009, it was possible, for the first time, to drive from one end of Labrador to the other. It was called the Trans-Labrador Highway, but the locals called it “Freedom Road.”
The road ran for 706 gravel-packed miles across the Canadian region of Labrador, and because of its remote location, you could drive for hours without seeing another soul. Some say it’s the longest unpaved road in the world. It’s definitely one of the loneliest.
Although Labrador boasts nearly 5,000 miles of coastline and Canada’s highest mountain range east of the Rockies, it’s barely better explored than it was 180 years ago, when John James Audubon called it “the most extensive wilderness I have ever beheld.” Only 27,000 people live in Labrador: Imagine an area the size of Arizona with the population of a Phoenix suburb. If Manhattan had the same population density, its citizens would number five.[1]
There is only one way in and one way out of Labrador; the Trans-Labrador Highway. If someone would travel the unpaved road for six to eight hours to get into the town of Wabush, there is only one way he or she could leave—by turning around.
Now, with that in mind, remember if you will what God did in the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve chose to sin and disobeyed God’s command not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. What did God do? He cast them out of the Garden, out of His perfect and holy presence in which no sin is permitted to exist, and put a Cherubim angel with a flaming sword that swung back and forth in order to, as Genesis says, “guard the way to the Tree of Life.” Adam and Eve had now fallen from grace, sinful and rebellious toward God. Sin had now entered their hearts, and for them to now eat of the Tree of Life would mean they would forever be this way. God in His amazing grace and mercy would not allow for that. So the Cherubim now guarded the Tree of Life and Adam and Ever were sent out of the garden of Eden to walk by faith in the promise God gave them of a Savior who would come to be born of Eve.
In the beginning, there was only one way into creation, and that was by the gracious creative will of God. Adam and Eve didn’t ask to be created in perfection, they didn’t request to be given a perfect creation to enjoy and maintain in the presence of their Creator forever. No, there was only one way into the Garden of Eden, and now, like Wabush Canada, there was only one way out – only one road back to a right relationship with God. That road was the long, lonely road to the cross on Mount Calvary. It was a road that God Himself would come to walk for us in His Son Jesus – a road that was paved through the wilderness and darkness of a sinful world.
Each of us, the children of Adam and Eve, arrives into this life born in a town called Sin. Much like Wabush, the town of Sin we are all born into is an isolated island, separated from God and where death is the only absolute certainty. Though as a sinful humanity we are not permitted to return to the Garden of Eden, our merciful God has been built a new road back to eternal life; a road to redemption and back to the fellowship with God we were intended for. This road is the only way out of this sinful life, and out of a life of separation from God. It is a road built by God himself. A road paved by the very footsteps of His beloved Son Jesus Christ. A narrow road of faith.
Much like the one road leading in and out of Labrador Canada, in order to find this road and take this road to salvation, one must first turn around. That’s exactly what the word repent means; to turn around and turn away from our sinful selves and this sinful world, and instead turn towards Jesus who has paid for our sins on the cross and has promised to lead us all the way back home.
We do not have to launch some grand expedition or spiritual quest to find the way to this road and the way back home. No, God has made it very clear how to find our way back home. He came here Himself in Jesus Christ to tell us with His own lips how to get back home. Jesus says in John 14:6-7, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
Stay on the narrow road my friends. Hold fast to Jesus. He is the only way home.
Have a wonderful rest of your day, remembering that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
[1] 2014 “Men’s Journal” – https://www.mensjournal.com/travel/the-loneliest-road-in-the-world-20140919/
