A Fork in the Road

Many times in your life you come to a fork in the road. There are two ways you could go, right or left. Usually the choice is simple: right and wrong, but what if both of the choices are both right and wrong at the same time? If either way you go, something good, and something bad will happen, regardless of your choice? How do you know which path to pick?
The normal response would be: "Well, I'd just have to choose one."
Or, for believers, "I'd pray about it, and then choose whichever one God tells me to."
Me, I would have thought my answer would be the second, and I suppose it would have been before I talked to God about it. What I discovered, however, is that God doesn't always tell us to take either of the obvious paths that lay in front of us. He doesn't always show us a little out of the way trail he created either. Sometimes he asks us to plunge straight into the brush and the thorns, to create our own straight path, despite the pain involved in doing so.
My natural instinct is to shy away from the painful untouched wilderness, to stay on the beaten path, and to stay at the fork, not making a decision or moving forward out of fear that my decision will hurt someone else, as well as myself, as in the case I now face, I know it will.
Yet here I stand at the fork, one foot at the beginning of one path, and one foot at the front of the other, and here also is my Saviour, taking my hand and tugging me forward, toward the untamed thorns and brambles, telling me to go straight, that neither path is the way he wants for me, though I may walk them if I wish.
Enticements also lie on either path, begging me to go down them, so as to not hurt those I love, to make at least one person happy. Temptations to give into part of what my earthly flesh wants right now, to find fufillment emotionally by the things of this world, while still finding a bit of righteousness and jusification in the choices I make. The paths tell me that there is still a right way between the two of them.
I know if I choose to walk straight, I will be scarred by the emotional thorns in my way. I also know that though the way I choose is my choice to make, those thorns will fall on others as well. hurting and scarring those I love so dearly.
So now I sit here, my heart in anguish, every fiber of my being screaming against hurting those I love. Yet toward every direction I face lies pain of some sort, for both myself and those I love, and I cannot backtrack, for behind me the path is locked in the vault of the past.
I know I will sit here awhile longer, calming and strengthening my heart, and vainly hoping to soften the blow, but in the end, I know I will bravely stand up, take my Saviour's hand, and walk into the wilderness, trusting him with my every step.
Yet this makes me wonder. While I may have sought the Lord in such a decision as I now face, how many smller decisions do we make in our every day lives without thinking, that the Lord may want us to go off the beaten path? How many times do we pass by an oppurtunity to share God with other people, simply because we are too caught up in the monotonous routines of our lives, day in and day out, that we don't even think to stop and hear from the Lord?
What if, while getting our morning coffee as usual, God wanted you to buy an extra bagel and give it to the homeless man down the street, but you were so focused on getting in and getting out, that you didn't even hear God talking to you?
If we can become so caught up that we don't hear God putting things right in front of our faces, how will we ever be able to hear his simple whispers?
Life can become so mechanical, but we aren't machines, so why are we living like them?!
We all have the desire inside of us to become more intimate with our Creator, to hear and recognize his voice. Yet we have gotten to the point that many of us are so routinized, that the thought is pushed out of our minds, erased like "unneeded data".
Now that I am waking up, I realize that living like a robot is no life at all. I want to wake up each morning with a vivacity, and a new, raw sensitivity to life, and the voice of my amazing Creator. I don't ever want to fall back into the numb stupor of monotonous routines. I want to be able to breathe in and out, and truly feel alive!