The Road Less Traveled

by Missy Grant

Do you ever find yourself taking the road less traveled? The path is seemingly smooth ahead as many have walked it, yet you take the other path. Robert Frost knew about this...

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, 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 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

...Robert Frost

Jesus knew about it as well..."As He entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met Him; and they raised their voices, saying, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!" When He saw them, He said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And as they were going, they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at His feet, giving thanks to Him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine--where are they? "Was no one found who returned to give glory to God, except this foreigner?" And He said to him, "Stand up and go; your faith has made you well." Luke 17:12-19

I've always been one to take the road less traveled. For me, I think it is an exercise in faith. I want to be the person in the above scripture who turns around and thanks the Lord for His grace and His Mercy. Not the one who keeps walking with the crowd. It is interesting to note the phrase "Go show yourselves to the priests.” In those times one had to appear to the priests in order to be admitted back into society in all its forms. Given a clean record of health, these former lepers could enter back into the society they were cast out. They were in a hurry to re-enter...forgetting the one who had cleansed them. Where are you today? In a hurry to join the crowd or in a hurry to praise and thank the Lord?