This post, Two Roads Diverged, is a continuation of our look at Psalm 1 that this blog series began on Monday.

One of the most famous poems in American literature is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

This week we have been looking at two pathways laid out for us in Psalm 1. One is the pathway that leads to life and happiness, the other to destruction and death.

The ungodly are not so,

But are like the chaff which the wind drives away.

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment,

Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Psalms 1:4-6 (NKJV)

The life we choose to live and the life we end up with are directly connected to one another. The pathway of happiness is not found at the end of careless, self-centered, easy decisions in the day-to-day movements of life. It is found in the deliberate movements toward what is right rather than what is easy, what is true rather than what is comfortable, and what is the will of God rather than my personal preference at this moment.

Every day for every one of us, two roads diverge in the wood of life. The pathway we choose at that moment of decision defines the life we live today and until the end.