Am I a mule?

I wonder if I am a mule.

I yearn to live justly and I hope to live rightly, but I am stunned by just how many times I do exactly the opposite.

I think I really am a mule.

Hee-Haw. This weekend, a good friend and I talked about choices and I said, "The road less traveled is so because it's likely the harder path." You know what I am referring to - the Frost poem and the bit about two roads diverging in the wood.

I believe in taking the harder path, when I know it to be right, but the mule in me has a senseless attraction to the well-worn grooves of the bright and 'easy' path.

What good mule would choose the hard path anyway? I know that taking the harder road means a potential lack of carrots, let alone a good time walking, so the comfort of familiar territory is a welcome relief. That's what the easy path is, after all; a way to avoid the difficulties of complicated choices.

I was reading 2 Kings, 17 today and found this (13-15a):

And though the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer, "Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statues, in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your fathers and which I sent you by my servants and prophets," they did not listen, but were as stiff necked as their fathers, who had not believed in the Lord, their God. The rejected his statutes, the covenant which he had made with their fathers, and the warnings which he had given them. The vanity they pursued, they themselves became.

Not so much has changed, I think - for me at least. Is it the same for you?

Christian or not, believer or not, do we know right and choose to hee-haw instead of living up to our own expectations? Sometimes, to that questions, maybe the answer is yes.

However, I think if we look hard enough, we will find all the courage needed to make the right choice and walk the road less traveled, doing what we know to be right and true.