Proverbs 22:6 (NLT)
6 Direct your children onto the right path,and when they are older, they will not leave it.

This is as true for us as it is for our children. We should always remember that we’re always God’s children. We never grow out of that so we can always be directed to the right path. Many of us were not set on the right path when we were younger – the narrow path that God gave us. We’ve followed the wide, wandering, intriguing and beguiling life of the world so richly described in the book The Pilgrim’s Progress (John Bunyan, 1678, Hand Press). We can be set on the right path.

I’ve not seen anyone who really invited Christ to be first in their heart and first in their life regret that decision for a nanosecond.

John 11:40 (NLT)
40 Jesus responded, “Didn’t I tell you that you would see God’s glory if you believe?”

Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
11 Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.

We all have faith. Atheists cannot disprove the existence of God anymore than we can prove God exists. We both have faith in what we believe. I just happen to have faith that the written word of God is just that, written with human hands by God.* The fact that is describes our world today so well, as it did 350 years ago, as it did 1350 years ago, is no mystery. Atheism only wishes it had legs like that to stand on.

Galatians 5:22-23 (NLT)
22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

There is no law against it, but our nature is against it. We’d all like to think that we’re naturally loving, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and in self-control. When comparing ourselves to our chosen comparison, we are. But if we were all these things to the degree that God calls us to be, there wouldn’t be the broken families, neighborhoods, cities, states, countries, caliphates, etc. that we have now. We cannot be the first if the second exists. It doesn’t make sense logically.

Romans 8:31 (NLT)
31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?

I think we’d all agree that we should be on the right path. We just tend to disagree what that path looks like. God doesn’t. He shows us the path we need to take. Just like our children will choose, so we need to as well. It pays to follow the map if you want to stay on the path.

*Studying the bible, getting to what was really said instead of extrapolating what an inherently poor translation from Aramaic or Greek to English seems to say on the surface. Remember, there are 12 Greek words that translate to love in the bible, and they all mean different things, but all translate to love. The bible is full of that depth and complexity.