Two Roads: Truth and... Almost Truth

One of my favorite poems is Robert Frost's "Two Roads Diverged." Take a second, folks, and let the beauty of these words saturate your spirit. Whether you typically appreciate poetry or not, think about the leafy woods, the crunch of dead leaves on the pathway, and the cool and crisp autumn day for just a moment. Smell the musky-sweet scent of the decay, and feel the cold as it nips your nose and cheeks.

"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 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 the 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."

I have no idea if Robert Frost understood the spiritual significance of this poem, nor yet intended it... but there is an abundance of truth in these verses, and my whole soul resonates with the lines: "Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back," and "I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." 

In a parallel picture, one of the scenes from John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress also features two roads, similarly laid out. Christian and his friend Hopeful come to a place where two roads diverge. They stare at the dilemma laid before them. Should they travel this way? Or that way? Both ways seem to lead onward to their intended destination in the Celestial City, but when they stand on one side of the path, one way seems straighter, and when they move to the other side, the other way seems straighter. Neither Christian nor Hopeful remember or think to check with their map, which clearly marks the correct path. 

They conjecture and debate and wonder and think. While they're trying to decide what to do, a man comes up to them. He asks them where they are going, and they explain their confusion. So he points to the path on the right. "You want to travel this way," he says, and he walks with them down the path he's indicated.

After a while, Christian notices that the Celestial City is not so directly in front of them, and that they're slowly curving away from it. It's at that point of realization where the man turns around and throws a net over them to keep them in place until the Wicked Prince's soldiers can come and take them away.

Thankfully for Christian and Hopeful, one of the Good King's servants frees them from the net before that can happen. But because the men had the answer with them the whole time (the map, the Word of God) and because they had neglected to check the map to find the correct path, the servant disciplines them. It hurts, but Christian and Hopeful remember their lesson as the King's servant leads them back to the correct path.

This morning, I want to focus on a single verse within the section of John I was reading: "He who speaks on his own does so to gain honor for himself, but he who works for the honor of the One who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him" (John 7:18).

More than anything, I want to be a "woman of Truth." I want to leave "Self" behind, get rid of anything that keeps me tied to my own desires and my own earthly, faulty, highly-flawed thoughts... and speak, think, and act with the Truth of the One my whole heart wants to serve. 

It's at that meeting place, that crossroads, between Self and Truth -- that I spent a lot of time this morning. What is Truth? 

I've lost count of the times that people have told me: "It's my truth," or "It's your truth," as though Truth is subjective and circumstantial, or that it can be defined by any given situation. When we believe that Truth is a changing, ever-morphing concept dependent on a person's thoughts about it... we've lost its essence. It is no longer "truth," but "desire."

Truth pulls no punches, gives no quarter. It simply is. 

So when I read Jesus' words in John 14:6: "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," I see there the immovable, eternal, and invariable concept that if Jesus is the Truth, there is no other. There is no other Way. There is no other Life. 

When I read Jesus's words in John 17:17 where He prays for His disciples and says, "Sanctify them by the Truth; Your Word is Truth," I accept that there is no other Truth that does not align itself with the Word.

The two paths I described above from The Pilgrim's Progress might just as well have been labeled: Truth on one side and Almost-Truth on the other. And Almost-Truth will lead to destruction every time, because it cannot be what it isn't. 

John 1:14 adds a separate and distinct concept that can walk with Truth. It can't be Truth, but it can parallel it, and that is the concept of Grace. "The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, Who came from the Father, full of Grace and Truth" (John 1:14).

Grace is the hand that removes the entrapping net.
Grace is the map that points back to the place where the way has been lost.
Grace is the understanding and forgiveness that finds us in our entrapment.
Grace is the discipline that helps us turn around.

Grace does not encourage us to continue walking down the wrong path.
Grace does not acknowledge the existence of any other Truth than the One Truth.
Grace simply understands, simply acknowledges the mistake, simply forgives the misdeed, and simply leads the wanderer back to firm footing.

Too many people are fooled by Almost-Truth. Too many people forget to check the map, myself included. I've admitted before that my biggest Achilles' Heel is my impulsivity, my headlong leap into things without necessarily spending much time Truth-seeking. How thankful I am for Grace, which always forgives me for my offenses, and points me back to where the two roads diverge.

And I -- I took the one less traveled by.
And that has made all the difference.