Good thread Diane, I suppose everyone struggles with this term and it's meaning if God is dealing with us in any way shape or form. I do think there are ungodly folk who give no thought to it. I do believe that repentence means a change in direction. So does disobedience. I often try to find practical illustrations to help me understand divine principles. I was recently shown that there is only one road in life. You can only travel in one of two directionsat any given moment in time. One end of the road is wide, the other as narrow as a sheep gate. If you are walking toward the wide end, it gets wider and lower as you go. If you are walking toward the narrow end, it gets narrower and higher as you go. One is after the Spirit, and the other after the flesh. I'm sure you know that when you are after the Spirit, the road gets narrower and steeper as you go and the crowd thins out considerably. To turn from the wide road or after the flesh, the carnal natural sinful way, is repentence. You simply cannot turn around and follow the Spirit without repentence. As christians, we are generally not always walking in the right direction. Some days we gain ground, others we lose it. The narrow way is the way of obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Remember, to know to do good and not do it is sin. I've seen a new "demension" to this recently. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the childrens game of "Chutes and Ladders". The game board has a "way" on it that curves this way and that as it climbs higher up the board. It begins at the bottom with the start and ends at the finish up top. Now in the kids game, the first one to finish is the winner. On the road of life, all who finish at the top are winners. Now, in the kids game, you could, I suppose go in either direction, but the children would tell you that going back toward the start is very foolish indeed. You would likely get laughed at. In the kids game, there are "chutes" and "ladders" along the "way". A ladder stretches from a square on the road to another square farther up the road. A chute is the same way. When it is your turn to move, if you land on a square at the bottom of a ladder, you get to climb the ladder and place your taw on the square at the top of the ladder. So you get an advance without having to roll the die and go one square at a time along the way. If you land at the top of a chute, you have to slide all the way down to the bottom of the chute and place your taw there and begin up the road again from that point. Please note, that from start to finish, you are always on the way. Your progress depends on the roll of the die, and how many chutes and ladders you encounter in your travels. To me, this is a wonderful illustration of how life as a christian works. I start the life at day one, born again, and I finish at the top on my last day. Regardless of which direction I am traveling, I am still on "the Way". Jesus is "the Way". Uphill is obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Down hill is when I'm smarter than God and do my own thing. The ladders represent the blessing and grace of God. I advance along the way by grace, unmerited favor, and move up without any merit of my own. God just boosts me up. The chutes are when I really mess up, and I have to go back down and start over at some point, and retake the ground I lost coming down the chute. But either way, I'm always on "the Way". If I persist long enough, I will reach my goal, the finish line. Alleluia. We are always on the way, Jesus Christ, as long as our faith and hope for eternal life is in Jesus Christ and His shed blood. He sanctified us (there's that word again) by His shed blood. Going up or tumbling down, we never leave "the Way" because if God be for us, who can be against us. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He leads us along "the Way" and in the right direction. Obedience will sometimes advance you up the way where serious disobedience will bring about chastisement and your life will take a slide. But you won't fall off the way, as long as Jesus is your hope for eternal life. Turning up is repentence and obedience, Turning down is selfishness, pride, all ungodliness and disobedience. Hint, keep your direction up hill by walking in obedience. Now comes the huge problem with a very simple solution. We cannot go up the way on our own. We can't even find up without the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We cannot see one square in front of the next. We only have today's square to work with. Where the next one goes, we must trust God or our own effort. Guess which one is successful. So to overcome all that would take us "down", we place all our faith in the One Who is leading us, Jesus Christ our Lord. Ok, ok, this is my analogy. Hope it blesses somebody. Enter into the rest beloved. Let Jesus show you the Way. Stop looking for it on your own and trying to find another way. There is only one way. It's the direction you are traveling that makes you foolish or wise. I hope to see you along the Way, headed up hill of course. God bless you one and all.
