Friday, June 24, 2011

The Road Not Taken

Don't you hate flowery poetry? I do. My mother loves all poetry, and when a person in charge of your literature class is a big fan of poetry, you spend a little extra time studying it. I hated the unit until we came to Robert Frost. What a refreshing change of pace. He isn't redundant just for the sake of increasing the length of a poem and he doesn't write nonsense line after line until finally coming to the point, but along the way confusing the reader.
The poem by Robert Frost that spoke to my heart the most was "The Road Not Taken." This, of course, is his most popular poem and I think that almost everyone can relate to this poem. There is some aspect in almost everyone's life where they have made the less popular choice.
My teen years were filled with making the less popular choice. Nothing will make you "fit-in" less than being a conservative Christian. When I was with my friends I always felt the responsibility to be the "good" one.
While at the time that wasn't the most fun experience, I appreciated it even then. I knew that when I saw other adolescents making poor choices I saw how good God had been to me. I heard someone once say that being born again as a young child meant that he didn't have a riveting testimony to recount how the Lord had saved him from a life riddled with sin, but that his testimony was that the Lord saved him from ever committing those sins. Truly, those of us who have the same testimony can appreciate God's grace even more! Not only did Christ's blood cover ours sins, but He prevented us from many unpleasant regrets!


The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.


So what's your Road Not Taken? Can I ask you to take the road I have taken and follow Christ?
"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." - Matthew 16:24

No comments:

Post a Comment