The Narrow Gate

We cannot survive without meaning.

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

When the problems of the world are in our face, affecting our lives, and leading us to fear, survival comes first with understanding our situation at the deepest most basic level.

In times of ease and plenty, life choices seem optional. It’s okay for people to do whatever brings them the greatest pleasure. This is the broad way into seeing the latest movie or riding the newest ride at the theme park nearby. It is choosing the unserious and popular over the the difficult and fundamental bedrock principles coming out of some dusty book our ancestors died defending.

Is there anything wrong with entertainment and recreation? Not necessarily, unless it is a choice to avoid seeking to understand fundamentally why we are here living at this time in world history.

The still point of our turning chaotic lives is the choice to go against the grain and become serious, possibly for the first time, in order to find the one thing more important than everything else, and then living based on this acquired understanding — even when everyone else seems content to just follow the latest fad or theory.

The narrow gate leads to God and His people who will always be in the unpopular, even persecuted, minority.

As Jesus said

Forward the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Matthew 7:14 (ESV)