The Exit Ramp

Don’t ask me for directions; I get turned around even when using a GPS.

I actually take a sort of bizarre pride in how easily I get lost. I am not exaggerating when I say that on at least TWO occasions (both during youth trips) I have gone into the wrong STATE. When you’re in Pennsylvania heading to another part of Pennsylvania, you need not take a detour through NEW JERSEY.

And the closest distance between two points in Maryland typically do not involve PENNYSLVANIA.

What I just can’t understand is that growing up, I fancied myself a GREAT navigator. On all our trips from Miami to New York City, I loved to hold the maps and try to compute mileage and our estimated time to arrival. I never got us lost (then again, most of the trip is just I-95 North).

Dad (not I) was driving, which also helped keep us heading in the right direction.

Nowadays, I consider myself blessed if I can just get to work without missing a turn.

There have been MANY u-turns in my life. You see, I have found the exit ramp to be my friend. Nothing’s worse than realizing you’ve goofed and then pulling up to a “NO U-TURN” sign. Then, furtively looking around to make sure the coast is clear you (A) compound your problems by making an illegal u-turn, or (B) sigh and turn into the street where you can turn around legally (I plead the Fifth Amendment).

Aren’t you glad that God does allow u-turns?

My earliest formal exposure to the meaning of repentance came with my first confession at St. Timothy’s Catholic Church.

I really had no conception about what sin was; just that it was bad. Sin was the bad things we did, and we needed to feel sorry for doing them and promise not to do them anymore. The feeling sorry part was the prelude to the confessing part.

I remember the first time I went to sit in the confession room. It wasn’t anything like the movies I had seen. The actor would enter a side door and behold an intricately carved wood panel with a tightly woven lattice. This was the confessional, which preserved his anonymity and allowed him to feel free to confess to God through the priest. At this point, he’d say, “Bless me father, for I have sinned,” and then shared his darkest thoughts and deeds. When finished with his list, the priest would dispense a number of prayers for him to recite to demonstrate his remorse. He’d go back to the chapel, prayed and felt better.

Purged.

This is how I thought it would go.

But no.

I walked in and came face to face with a priest with a placid expression, who was sitting down in plain view. There was a screen, but it was tiny, and didn’t seem to be of much use now that the father had seen me.

I felt naked. How could I confess all the things that I had done wrong to someone who knew who I was?

Even worse … I had come in completely unprepared. You see, I didn’t have a list of my sins. Now, I hadn’t killed anybody or anything like that. I just thought sin was about big stuff, stuff that got you in trouble with God. I couldn’t imagine ANYTHING I’d done to do that.

The father gently motioned for me to sit down in the chair in front of him (I really would have preferred to sit behind the screen).

My mind was racing. Surely it was a sin to not be able to think of a sin you had committed!

So instead of confessing my ignorance, I opened my mouth and began to spout off lies.

Yes, I lied to the priest as I began to tell a series of sins I supposedly had perpetuated.

Each lie had something to do with putting a lizard in one of my sister’s hair (I had four sisters; do the math). Now, I don’t recall at any point the priest trying to cut me off, or looking at me as if I was crazy. After I had finished the fourth (and final) iteration, he nodded and told me not to do it again.

I contritely agreed, and can honestly say that I have kept that vow to this day.

Repentance is like a u-turn. We realize something we did (or are doing) is not correct, and we do our best to make things right.

U-turns are permitted on the road of life. As a matter of fact, they are ESSENTIAL. We have all gone off the right path, but the truly amazing thing is that no matter how far away we think we may have left God behind, He is waiting right alongside the next exit ramp.

Joe


Ezekiel 33:10-12
“Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ As surely as I live, says the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die?

“Son of man, give your people this message: The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins.

Luke 11:29-32
As the crowd pressed in on Jesus, he said, “This evil generation keeps asking me to show them a miraculous sign. But the only sign I will give them is the sign of Jonah. What happened to him was a sign to the people of Nineveh that God had sent him. What happens to the Son of Man will be a sign to these people that he was sent by God.

“The queen of Sheba will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for she came from a distant land to hear the wisdom of Solomon. Now someone greater than Solomon is here—but you refuse to listen. The people of Nineveh will also stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.

Jonah Chapter 3
Then the LORD spoke to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”

This time Jonah obeyed the LORD’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.

When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:

“No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.

NLTse