Oh, the Places You’ll Go! It finds its way to the bestseller list every year around graduation time. The Dr. Seuss book paints an insightful picture of the adventures life brings. Its message is a timely gift for graduates in transition from a protective academic setting to the beautiful yet perilous road to be traveled through life. Here is my version.

The road you travel in your earthly journey will be winding and unclear. And even when the trail looks straight, a blanket of mist and fog will make every step indistinct. It will be fraught with twists you do not want and turns that are unexpected. And along the way there will be enticing trails that tempt your fleshly desires; that promise you wealth, position, and power; and that offer intriguing adventure and that demand life-changing sacrifice. All will shape the path before you, and all will prepare you for the raging rivers you must cross and mountains you must climb. These will define the life adventure that will be uniquely yours.

Everyone’s road through life is different. Everyone’s road leads to some doors that can’t be opened and to some windows that can’t be closed. And everyone’s road leads to a common fork in it. Sometimes the fork comes early in the journey, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes it comes at the very end. The fork in the road demands that a choice must be made. One path leads to destruction; the other to everlasting life. It’s a choice we all must make. It’s the part of the journey that will not be uniquely yours.

The roads of life we travel through this world are similar, and some of them even run parallel for a while. Our roads lead to raging rivers that appear too swift to cross and to mountains too steep to climb, but alongside us through the winding way and foggy lights a Shepherd is there to show us just enough to make our footing sure—if we listen.

But the road you travel is uniquely yours. No one else has ever traveled one exactly like it, and no one else ever will. God made the road just for you.

Travel it in faith and—Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

 

“You are the light of the world.”