The Christian Appeal (April 2001)
Issue Theme: The Long Road

"Small, Narrow, and Wonderful"
by John Comer (April 2001)

Have you noticed that the big shopping malls usually have very impressive main entryways?

The mall nearest our house is Metrocenter mall, and if you’re simply driving past it down the freeway and cast even a quick glance in that direction, you can’t miss its showy entrance, its doors waiting to swing wide open, welcoming the crowds into its spacious interior.

But a recent Metrocenter purchase my wife needed to make required that she not follow the crowds through the easy-to-find doorways into the expansive and inviting mall area. Instead, she searched for the very small and out-of-the-way side door marked “Sears Parts and Service.” Only because she carefully searched out this inconspicuous entrance was her trip successful.

Jesus knew that bigger doors won’t always get you where    you need to be and that it’s not always smart to follow large crowds, even though they seem perfectly content with the direction they’re heading.

Christ said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads   to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

When our Lord speaks here about a small gate opening onto    a narrow road which leads to life,  he definitely narrows down our options. The only other choice is virtually suicidal. Though it is  easily found and is heavily traveled, it leads to destruction. (How does it strike you to hear the Lord of creation speak of destruction?)

Nobody drifts into the small gate or travels the narrow road accidentally. Someone has suggested that it is an evangelical decision to enter the gate, and traveling the road is a matter of ethical endurance, that it speaks of initial commitment, and a subsequent journey of faith.

Jesus said, “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved” (John 10:9).

This often ignored gate is worth the finding, and we enter it one person at a time, leaving behind excess baggage that will not fit. The road is narrow, with boundaries, and within them our belief and behavior find direction as we grow in discipleship.

This road leads to life.

It takes us home to our Father.