(ThyBlackMan.com)
“This hill, though high, I covet to ascend; The difficulty will not me offend. For I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up, heart; let’s neither faint nor fear. Better, though difficult, the right way to go, Than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.”
John Bunyan, quote from The Pilgrim’s Progress
John Bunyan, that great Puritan preacher and author, wrote an allegory while in prison for holding religious services. This allegory, The Pilgrim’s Progress, depicts a young man and subsequent Christian who leaves the City of Destruction and strikes out on the road to the Celestial City. This work of theological fiction displays the journey of the Christian life, how it leads down many paths and terrain, yet with faith and perseverance, leads us to our eternal abode with God. Dear child of God, this is true of our walk of faith. We will encounter different paths, that is, different types of terrain, in our journey to that heavenly kingdom. Our experiences may vary in degrees of suffering, persecution, and blessing, yet it is the particular way we travel, and we must be committed to our course if we are to obtain the prize. This route isn’t for the slacking saint nor the one who wants to get to that country of war-worn warriors with ease of travel. Regardless of how treacherous the way, we must press on; we must press on, for this is our mandate and call, and we should desire to walk worthy of this vocation.
I want to encourage you, dear Christian, to maintain your course and keep your heading. Navigating through various seasons of discouragement and moments of despair may cause weariness. The heat of the battle may tempt you to quench the thirst of retreat, but you must press! You must push because others depend on your example and rely on your strength. You should press because you’ve joined the host of others who ran their race, and though some faltered, others kept on the path despite apparent dangers. Press because Jesus pressed. He pressed beyond the frailty of His body and heaviness of mind because He knew what He was pressing towards. Each step along Calvary’s Road cemented my path to glory and new life. And likewise, each of us has our own Via Dolorosa to walk, but ultimately, it matters not the terrain or the way but the destination.
This is what inspired Brother Paul to finish his course. Philippians 3:14, Paul says, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” This man had his destination in mind, similar to Christ, “who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of God.” The Apostle Paul encountered many obstacles and opposition along his journey, but with the proper perspective, he remained steadfast. Child of God, though we live in a different epoch of time, we too will face persecution. Again Paul, in an attempt to shape the expectations of new converts during his first missionary journey, went about “confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” Child of God, this is our inheritance, and it’s not unlike any of those that traveled before us, but they kept to their expedition because often the way to Beulah is through a barren landscape.
We may not all travel the same path, but we must walk the road marked for us. The route for Abraham was to come from familiar territory to a place God would show him, and he walked it. For Moses, it was departing the comforts of Egypt and tempering his passion for protecting God’s people on the backside of the desert, and he walked it. For David, it was living in obscurity tending his father’s sheep, then living in patience, anointed as king over God’s sheep, but he walked it. For Amos, it was leaving the family business of shepherding flocks and scraping figs to be an “unprofessional prophet” without formal training from the school of the prophets, but he walked it. The children of Israel had to walk various paths; sometimes, their way led through a desert wasteland and imprisonment in a foreign land. They walked through floods, survived fiery furnaces, slept in caves of lions, and endured battles with giants because they desired a place previously prepared by God.
Child of God, we, too, have such a place. If we stick with the journey, we’ll enter into a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, in a city whose builder and maker is God. The Lord Jesus has already gone ahead of us and has prepared our place, and one day our faith shall become sight. So I urge you to stay on course, travel the winding roads, and climb the rough side of the mountain because, in the end, when we reach that beautiful shore, we’ll be able to utter the hymn penned by Fanny Crosby:
All the way my Saviour leads me: O the fullness of His love!
Perfect rest to me is promised in my Father’s house above;
When my spirit, clothed immortal wings its flight to realms of day,
This my song through endless ages: Jesus led me all the way!
Staff Writer; C. E. Davis
This man of God can also be found online over at; InfiniteTruth Devotion.
One may also drop an email: CEDavis@ThyBlackMan.com.