Proverbs 14:12 - There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
I’m now in my fifth decade of life, and if my life were compared to a football game, I am well into my third quarter and moving ever closer to the fourth. I’ve got some history, and I have certainly seen some things that I wish did not exist in our world.
There actually is a way that appears to be right and ends up leading to death. And that “way” is a wide river with dozens upon dozens of tributaries leading to it, and only one “way” leading away from it. That one way is, of course, Jesus.
We can end up on the road to death so quickly, with such ease, that we cannot even remember exactly when it was that we stepped off of the road of life and peace and began to journey on a different path. I’ve seen it happen as a result of books that were read and believed rather than examined by and through the Word of God; via social media influences that pull and tug with both subtleties and blatant-cies (yes, I know that’s not a word…).
I’ve found that avoiding the way that seems right but leads to death is of supreme importance. As a mom of a large family, a homeschooling family, a church-going family, a hyper-vigilant, hyper-involved kind of mom… I can say with total honesty and transparency that I still ended up on a few roads in life that were headed straight toward death’s door. This happened to me personally, to my husband, and to our children, in a handful of different ways.
I’m not aiming to slander or gossip, nor to exaggerate or share a dishonest reflection of things that are in the past.
I am simply here to tell the truth.
The truth is, homeschooling our children did not prevent nefarious people from being able to target them. The truth is, being a hyper-vigilant parent did not mean I could always be “in the room” with my own children. The truth is, sometimes we were paying real cash money for our children to participate in activities that were led by not-good people, and in some cases “not-good” is an extreme understatement.
The truth is, going to church several times a week and volunteering and serving and being active and present is not always enough to keep us out of harm’s way.
The real truth is this: we have an enemy, the devil, that old serpent, the evil one, and he never takes a day off, never misses a chance to seize the moment, and never misses a cue. He is the ultimate opportunist, and those of us who love and follow Jesus are his primary targets.
Telling the truth is often uncomfortable, especially for those of us who love Jesus and love His people. We don’t want to slander anyone, and we don’t want to make waves that can be seen as divisive. But sometimes, just by means of asking honest questions or giving a hard “NO” to something that is really not best for our family or our children can be seen as divisive. Not simply going with the flow can be reason enough to be marked as a troublemaker (even though going with the flow often leads to floating on a tributary that connects to the river that is the path that ends up leading to death).
The truth is, you can love Jesus with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and still be completely misunderstood by other people who love Jesus. You can be heeding the wisdom of the Word of God and still be seen as a dissenter. You can be training up your children in the way they should go and still be told you are doing things the wrong way.
I’ve seen some things die as a result of ending up on the way that leads to death. I’ve seen my trust in leadership die, in a way. I’ve experienced the death of innocence. There has been a sad death in my belief that the Biblical model of accountability is actually at work in the Church in our current day and age. I’ve seen aspects of my health shrivel up and die off due to the stressors involved in heavy, hard seasons of life. Friendships have died. Ministry work has died off. And oh, so much else has suffered a premature and tragic end.
But that’s not all that’s happened, and it’s absolutely not the end of the story.
The truth is, I’ve seen the Lord move in ways that have brought life back to things that were dead. And I’ve seen Him let some things die that did not belong in my life. When He breathes life into something or someone that has been dead in the grave for a season of time, it’s miraculous and beautiful and brings Him honor and glory and praise!
If you are a parent, and you have been treated poorly because you were attempting to be a genuine and serious disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, I want to tell you how sorry I am for that experience. And if you feel as if you need to be even more diligent, more protective, more involved with things that your child is doing - even things in the homeschool or church community - then let me be the first to tell you to be super diligent, super protective, super involved and then add another layer of diligence and protectiveness and involvement. Because it won’t hurt to be more of those things, but it can hurt very badly to be less of them.
The truth is, Proverbs 14:12 contains a hard but honest teaching.
And the truth is, God placed it in His Word so that you and I would be discerning and wise as we walk in this broken-down old world. That’s the truth.
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