As you’ve walked along your life’s path, have you ever felt you’ve gone astray, entirely unable to find your way back? Perhaps even today you feel a bit lost, fearing you’ve taken a wrong turn because of a choice you’ve made . . .

John Bunyan, the seventeenth-century author who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress, a great Christian classic, wandered off the path leading to Christ. According to his own testimony, Bunyan was a very ungodly young man. During this period of his life, he wrote, “Then I said unto God, ‘Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.’” Because he rejected God, Bunyan had no peace in his heart. He felt greatly troubled by thoughts of the future, believing he had sinned beyond the possibility of hope. But at last he read John 6:37: “And the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out.” As Bunyan came to God, God granted him mercy, and Bunyan began to see the Light of salvation dawn upon him. He had come to know eternal life.

Bunyan later described his journey from despair to hope, from sinner to saint, in Pilgrim’s Progress, one of the greatest allegories of all time. The book chronicles a journey from the City of Destruction through the Doubting Castle and other dangers to the Celestial City. In it, Bunyan describes how anyone who desires the pilgrim way may find it, and he warns of the dangers one will encounter along the way.

Bunyan had learned a great lesson: We are saved only by grace, free and unmerited. Bunyan reminds us that we are only passing through this life en route to a greater destination. Therefore, we must take care to not get sidetracked from the straight and narrow path. Where are you along this journey? Do you allow Christ to guide you? As you trust in God’s grace, you can persevere to the end, for Christ gives you safe passage.