The Road Less Traveled- And How We Find It

The road less traveled was the ranch road. Four miles of washboard sand through the high desert. No signs. The landmark— the first possible right after the last convenience store. Then drive toward the mountain, fork right at the cattle-crossing, and keep going until you hit the dry river bed.

The day we found it, we dragged our five kids in our 15-passenger van looking for the place we knew God had called us to. An abandoned homestead donated for the purpose of being used for God’s glory. Not all of us were sure it was the place we were supposed to be. But some of us knew deep down.

We couldn’t reach the end of the road. Our van wouldn’t make it down the worn embankment that had become more of a trail than a road. So, we all got out and decided to go by foot. Down the rocky slope, we found the river bed. White-washed sand, hot from the cloudless sky. Rocky outcroppings. Sparse, thorny vegetation waiting for the twice-a-year rainfall. The occasional palm whose roots ran deep enough to find life.

And from that place, we saw the roof. Rusted tin. Just peeking over the bramble hedge. That was it. We knew it instantly. We had found the ranch.    

A chain-linked fence defined its boundary—an attempt to keep some goats in and any stragglers out. But the goats no longer existed. No one knew their fate. The fruit trees were gone too. Burned years ago after the wells dried up. An earthquake had shifted the stone foundation beneath the land and the flow of water had ceased. The springs shut down. The land had died. Until another quake only a handful of years earlier had reopened the ground and the water began again.

See, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? Now it springs up. I am making rivers in the desert, streams in the wasteland, to bring drink to my people … my chosen people that they may praise my name (Isaiah 43:18-21).

We had to climb the fence. All seven of us. Our youngest child, three years old. Our oldest, twelve. But we made it. And we walked around the broken land. Mostly dirt and rock. A few palm trees. Dry heat like your grandmother’s oven. Silt that kicked up and covered our clothes. One block structure—only one— with windows of bars and broken glass. We cut our hands on a tree named Uñas del Gato or The Cat’s Nails and were stung by a nest of yellow jackets. We realized then that everything in the desert either bites or stings. And we should probably go home.

Instead, we sat down on the cracked cement steps that would soon be our home. The place our children would grow up. Our baby of three would be twelve the day we would leave. We didn’t know that then. Or the ministry God had in store. That it would touch thousands of lives because on that day, we said yes. We looked around at the emptiness. The abandonment. The brokenness. And my husband prayed, “God, please tell me if this is you. If you are leading us here—to this place. For surely without you, we will die.”

And God answered: Yes, Peter. This is Me. And everything you need is right here. 

Everything we need. Right there. Really, God? Cause it doesn’t look like that from here. It doesn’t feel like that from here. How could that be? No running water. No electricity. No resources. Just the seven of us … and the sting of the desert. Yet, it was. Because that’s what God does. He invites us to share in the miracles He is about to do. He took that abandoned piece of land in the middle of nowhere and made it a beacon on a hill that shone bright in the lowliest of places. And still does.

Ashes to Gold.

And I’ve come to realize that whether it’s land, or people, the truth remains. He takes the farthest, most out of reach places on the earth—and those in our own soul. He takes the brokenness and the grime. The thirst and the hunger. Even the bites and the stings. The lonely. The empty. The lost. He takes it all and shines His glory through it … if we let Him.  

See, I am doing a new thing? Do you not perceive it? Now it springs up.

And everything you need is right there. Right where you are. Today. Who would have guessed from where you’re standing now how it would all unfold?

Look for it. Search for it. And then say yes.

The reality is, it’s already waiting to be birthed in you.