“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.’”
(John 14:6, NIV)
When Life Feels Like a Road
We often describe our lives as a road—a life journey, a path we walk.
People end up following what they truly want and love. That becomes the path they walk.
Their dreams, success, happiness, friends, money, reputation, or even a desire to make up for a painful past—each person plans their life and works hard according to the passions and longings hidden deep in their heart.
My own childhood was not easy. In that difficult season, I met Jesus.
As a child, I wanted to become like Him. I wanted to walk the road He had walked.
At a church retreat, I even prayed like this:
“God, please make it so that it won’t hurt if I am nailed to the cross. Then I want to obey and follow the road of suffering that Jesus walked.”
It was the prayer of a child who wanted to die for Jesus, but was also afraid of pain and asked that it would not hurt. Sometimes I wonder how God felt hearing that little prayer.
Still Weak, Still Walking After Him
Now I am in my forties, nearing fifty, and I am still weak.
Even so, I walk while looking to Him. I want Him to be the only way I walk in.
Because I believe His words: “I am the way and the truth and the life.”
So when I face questions in life and must make many decisions, I try to ask myself, “Which choice is the way that follows Jesus?”
More than my own benefit, I want to choose sharing. Fulfilling my dreams is important, but even more, I want Jesus Christ to be revealed through my small acts of service. My life becomes a series of choices like that.
I stumble often. I fall more than I wish to admit.
But the strength that always lifts me up again is the road of sacrifice and love that Jesus already walked before me. Because He walked that way, He gives me the hope and strength to want to walk it too.
I think of my Christian friends—the ones I love and worry about.
Even in their hard situations, I hope they will quietly keep walking, looking to Him, striving to become more like Him in the middle of this world.
And I hope that someday, you and I, and all of us, will meet Jesus Christ at the end of that road.
Following the Way Jesus Lived
We often say, “Let’s follow the road Jesus walked.” What does that really mean?
I believe it means living in the same way He lived His life.
In our lives, I do not think Jesus draws a map and says, “Go to that country,” “Move to that city,” as if He were giving us a GPS route. At least that is how I see it.
But we can live according to the way He lived—His way of loving, serving, forgiving, and obeying the Father.
Wherever we are, in any nation, in any city, if we learn to resemble the way He lived, then aren’t we walking the road He walked?
Learning His Way Through the Word
How can we know how He lived and how He wants us to live?
That is written in the Bible.
Without the Word, we can never truly grow to resemble Jesus. Without the Word, we cannot walk the road of the cross that He walked.
That is why, even today, we need to meet Him in Scripture and learn the way of following Jesus there.
My hope is that all of us will walk that road day by day, until the end of our journey, where we finally see the One who is the way, the truth, and the life.