Image by Grok
Crossroads
Last night I dreamed I was standing at a crossroads. One road wandered downward into a valley of noise, glamor, and crowds—a place where no one ever had to think about what lay beyond the horizon. The other road rose upward, quiet and steep, disappearing into a pale, beckoning light. I could hear and feel the whisper of a steady Wind at my back, gently rustling the leaves scattered along the road ahead of me.
As I hesitated, an old traveler approached—a man whose face was lined with both joy and grief, as if he had walked both roads and remembered every step.
As he came closer, I asked, "Which road should I take?"
The old traveler smiled. "The Wind is calling you."
"But it won't carry me," I replied.
His smile deepened, not with amusement but with understanding. "No," he said. "It won't carry you. A carried traveler never learns to walk."
I looked again at the rising road. It was steeper, narrower, lonelier—harder. But still the Wind pressed gently against my back, feeling more like an invitation than a push.
"What happens if I choose the wandering road?"
"You will learn," the old traveler said. "But you will walk in circles until you choose again."
"And if I choose the rising road?"
The old traveler's eyes sparkled. "Then every step you take in the dust becomes a step in eternity. The moment you choose, the road becomes more than a road. It becomes a bridge."
In expectation, I whispered, "A bridge to what?"
"To the One who sends the Wind," he answered.
The Wind touched me again—warm, patient, full of promise. I closed my eyes, breathed it in, and stepped onto the rising road.
Reflection: There is a force and purpose behind our individual lives that is constantly drawing humanity toward a greater and more perfect reality. God is calling us home, but we must choose to go. The act of choosing is the point where the physical arena becomes the spiritual arena—a bridge, so to speak.
Every life contains a crossroads, though we rarely recognize it when we're awake. We imagine our choices are small, scattered, and disconnected—yet, in truth, they gather into two great paths. One path bends downward into distraction, noise, and the comfortable illusion that the horizon does not matter. The other rises toward a light we cannot fully see but somehow know.
The Wind in my dream is not a force but an invitation. It represents the gentle pressure of grace — the pull of meaning, conscience, beauty, and longing. It never overrides the will because love cannot be compelled. A carried traveler never learns to walk, and a coerced soul never learns to love.
The wandering road is not evil; it is simply endless. It offers diversion instead of direction and motion instead of progress. Many walk it for years before realizing they have been circling the same questions, the same wounds, the same desires that never quite satisfy. It is a road with many forks that lead to darkness and eternal death.
The rising road is harder because it is spiritual. It asks something of us. It requires intention, courage, and willingness to leave behind the noise that numbs us. But the moment we choose it—no matter how awkward we feel—the ordinary dust beneath our feet becomes something more. The physical world becomes the arena where spiritual choices take on weight and consequence. The road becomes a bridge.
And the bridge leads not merely to a destination, but to a Person — the One who sends the Wind, who calls without coercing, who waits in the eternal light without weariness.
My dream reminds us that life's decisive moments are often quiet and introspective. It is the moment we turn our face toward the rising road and take a single step. That step, however small, is the beginning of eternity.
"If we find in ourselves a desire nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world." — C.S. Lewis
