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Exits

            Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. (Romans 7:24-25) 

Then Samuel took a stone and placed it between Mizpah and Shen, and named it Ebenezer, saying, “So far the Lord has helped us.” (I Samuel 7:2) 

I’ve been talking about the easy paths that I tend to take. They look easy, probably because they look familiar. In Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ Uncle Screwtape warns his nephew about the dangers of seeking to influence his patient to greater sins. I found this in my own experience one day as I scooped a spoonful of peanut butter out of the jar. “What is more evil,” I thought, “a spoonful of peanut butter or murder?” Given the frequency that I am tempted to eat a spoonful of peanut butter, and the infrequency with which I am tempted to commit murder – and the lesser likelihood that I might attempt or accomplish the latter, peanut butter is the far greater danger and sin.

So often, the easy paths we take are the ones we’ve walked thousands of times. The slope isn’t steep and it’s not uphill. The hard work always comes later. One of the paths I take is “Victim Highway.” It has lots of other names: Poor Me, Woe-Is-Me, and It’s Not Fair. Some people even call it Loser’s Lane, Failure Road, or Humble Hill Highway. The truth is, it’s part of the Pride Freeway System. The only radio station that seems to play is “IAME” (It’s About ME.)

The thing we don’t tend to notice is the number of exits along the road. When we do notice them, the road looks treacherous and steep – either up or down. And they have names like Straight Street, Narrow Way, and (more often than those) Jesus Throughway. They lead to towns like Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control. There’s another exit of note, to a scenic overlook that lets you gaze at two magnificent mountains: Praise and Gratitude. The problem is that to get to the overlook, you have to climb a molehill that seems more like Mount Everest. It’s known as Mount Self.

The thing about the Jesus Throughway is that it’s a toll road. The toll has already been paid, but we have to be willing to ask for an “EZ Pass” in order to use it. That pass was paid for, of course, by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who give us our salvation. That’s what today’s passages are about.

On the Victim Highway, we hear the first half of Paul’s words. “Wretched man that I am!” The problem is that we can’t stay on the Victim Highway and ride the Jesus Throughway. We have to stop listening to IAME and listen instead to JITW (Jesus is the Way) radio. We need to thank Him that He has brought us this far, even if “this far” isn’t where we think we should be.

I’ve written before that Jesus has always shown me where the next exit is. He’s kept His promise to guide me. Usually those exits have involved change, but the change has seemingly just happened. The thing I haven’t learned to realize is that Jesus is always the exit, and He’s available every day. I just need to take the next road that gets off Mount Self.

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