two roads diverged in a yellow wood

"I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself along in a dark wood... Death could scarce be more bitter than that place! But since it came to good, I will recount all that I found revealed there by God's grace." (Dante's Inferno, 2-3, 7-9)

while i don't think, in any respect, that Dante's Inferno is going to be a theologically sound description of salvation, sanctification, and glorification, Dante said something wonderful...
straying from the straight and narrow road, the one less traveled, leads into the dark wood... only the dark wood doesn't look as dark as Dante portrays it... in reality, the road to hell is a dark road leading only to darkness, but it's like the Matrix— it looks like something really great, and pleasing, but it's not.
but also like what Dante says, "all that I found revealed there by God's grace," is a glorious freedom out of the matrix of sin— out of deception into the light.

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I once was fatherless,
a stranger with no hope;
Your kindness wakened me,
Awakened me, from my sleep

Your love it beckons deeply,
a call to come and die.
By grace now I will come
And take this life, take your life.

Sin has lost it's power,
death has lost it's sting.
From the grave you've risen
VICTORIOUSLY!

Into marvelous light I'm running,
Out of darkness, out of shame.
By the cross you are the truth,
You are the life, you are the way

My dead heart now is beating,
My deepest stains now clean.
Your breath fills up my lungs.
Now I'm free. now I'm free!

"Thank you for waking me from my sleep, and for taking me off the way of destruction. Thank you for showing me the truth about my sin and the glories of Your grace. Thank you for rescuing me Lord, and for setting me free."

selah

EM