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TITLE: Few There Be That Find It!
By Missey Butler
12/01/05
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Few There Be That Find It!
By Missey Butler

Have you ever heard a statement that so challenged you, that you just knew you couldn’t rest until you discovered the meaning or located the answer? That is exactly how one particular verse took hold of me early on in my Christian walk. It was like a spiritual ball and chain that hung around my mind and heart, weighing me down until I purposed within myself that I would do what ever it takes to seek out the truth. I have since discovered that God can be lovingly “relentless,” and go to great lengths in His efforts to compel us to a deeper understanding of His ways! The verse is found in Matthew 7:13-14 and it says:

Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because stait is the gate narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

It was those last six words “few there be that find it” that stubbornly held me captive and kept me in a place of close introspection in my day to day walk. Every time I read those words, I would be gripped with the question, “Am I one of the few included in that group? I was always very inquisitive as to who made up this select group of people and what exactly were the qualifications? I would continually quiz myself as to whether or not I was getting closer to becoming one of the “few” included in that group. After a while it became so big inside of me, it became an actual “heart cry!”

Then one day I began to understand that the Kingdom of God was not somewhere out in the broad blue horizon, but that it was WITHIN ME ! And that the many and various dealings of God within my life were producing in me a type of “narrowing” if you will.

I was undoubtedly realizing that I could “of myself “ DO NOTHING! And, that the smaller I became (in relation to dying to my own will) the more manifestation of God’s glory was becoming evident in my life! Hallelujah! My road was no longer a wide and broad highway leading to destruction. God’s steady hand of refining (which was meant to decrease me!) was gradually merging me into a small, one lane, narrow road that was leading to the very gateway of LIFE… spoken of by Christ Himself!

I heard one time about a popular best selling book back in the 80’s entitled: “The Road Less Traveled,” and I couldn’t help but think of that book as sat down and started to express this ongoing revelation with pen and paper. Yes, God calls us to walk the straight and the narrow, but what he calls us to do, he also provides the way and the means to get there. Our human nature will always choose the softer, easier way…(the road “well” traveled) that broad road that so many prefer to go down, but that is not the highway of holiness, where only the ones who have reckoned themselves “dead to all self, dead to all sin, dead to all self-effort…are allowed to walk. It’s the road of the cross. Will you be counted among the few?

When you stand before Him on that bright and glorious day…you will be so glad you that made that divine detour!

And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. The unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that way. (Isaiah 35:8)
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