One time my brother and I and our wives were on the way to Rochester, Minnesota to see our Dad who was a patient in Mayo Clinic. Due to some road work, they put up a detour to miss a portion of the highway around Des Moines, Iowa. On the way back a few days later, we (my brother and I) were sure we knew how to take a “shortcut” through town and come out at the highway on the other side of town.
Well, you’ve no doubt heard that men rarely ask directions or use maps. But, after driving around for most of an hour we decided perhaps it was time to ask someone for directions (and our wives had suggested it a few times!). So we stopped at a convenience store, and asked the lady working there how to get back to the highway.
Eventually we learned where we were, and where we needed to be. We’re still trying to live that one down. 🙂
If you’ve ever been lost somewhere that’s completely new or foreign to you, whether it’s in the middle of town or the middle of the countryside, it’s not a pleasant feeling. There’s the joke about a hunting guide who instructed his clients if they get lost, shoot three times into the air every hour. Sure enough one of them got lost, and after a couple of days they finally found him. They asked him if he shot three times in the air every hour. “Sure!” he said. “But I ran out arrows!”
Jesus had told his disciples some disturbing things: He was going to leave them, and when He left they could not go with Him, but they would “follow later”; one of them would betray Him; and Peter would deny Him. It was quite a day!
Then He said :
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”
5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14)
Believing in Jesus + confession that we are sinners + repentance – the turning away from our sin = salvation.
“Yet to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.” (John1:12)
You know the way.
THE RIGHT RENDITION 