The Pathfinder

Every path to glory has one thing in common — someone went first. Someone moved through the wilderness ahead of you, marked the trees, and made a way where there was no way. In the language of exploration, that person is called a pathfinder. In the language of the church, we call them a soul winner. Solomon said it plainly in Proverbs 11:30 — He that winneth souls is wise. And centuries later, the prophet Daniel told us what God does with the wise — they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever. This week on Paths to Glory, we explore what it actually costs to do this work, what it requires of the person willing to do it, and why blazing a trail for someone else may be the most important thing you ever do. The path doesn't build itself. Someone has to go first.

If you’re enjoying Paths to Glory, be sure to check out our two other podcasts!

Paths to Glory Kenya shares powerful stories of faith and transformation from the heart of Africa — voices of hope, revival, and purpose.

And for the young — and the young at heart — don’t miss The Jones Family Chronicles, a fun, faith-filled adventure series for the whole family.

You can find Paths to Glory Kenya and The Jones Family Chronicles

The song "Paths to Glory" created with Udio and written by Roy Allison IV.

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Transcript

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Everyone has a story. That story is your path. A path filled with trials, triumphs, transformations, and miracles. Welcome to Paths to Glory, where we dive deep into the extraordinary narratives of those who have had their darkest moments, turned into beacons of hope. Each episode unveils the raw, heartfelt stories of redemption and renewal, showcasing the awesome power of God. Prepare to be moved, inspired and reminded. But no path is beyond redemption. Now join us and let these powerful stories illuminate your own category. In the language of exploration, there is a word for the person who goes ahead. The one who does not wait for the path to be clear before moving forward. The one who enters the wilderness first, not because they are fearless, but because they understand that someone has to go first, and they decided that someone will be them. That person is called a pathfinder, and the work they do, the dangerous, deliberate, often thinkless work of exposing a trail so that others can follow has a name too. It's called blazing. A trailblazer in the original sense was someone who moved through unmarked wilderness and marked the trees as they went, cutting a small notch or a blaze into the bark so that the next person behind them would know someone has been here. This way is passable. Follow this mark and you will not be lost. It was painstaking work. It required paying close attention to where you had been so that you could communicate it clearly to someone who you had never met and would never see. The blaze was not for the one who made it. It was never for the one who made it. It was entirely, exclusively, sacrificially for the ones who came after. Now I want you to sit with that image for a moment. Because I believe it is one of the most accurate pictures of what a soul winner actually is. This podcast is called Paths to Glory. We have told that story in 50 some odd episodes now. Story after story of men and women who have found their way to God through winding, difficult, sometimes devastating terrain. And in nearly every one of those stories, if you trace it back far enough, you find the same thing. There was someone who went first. Someone who made a mark on a tree and said, This way, follow me. I have been where you are going, and I can tell you it is worth every step of the journey. Sometimes that person was a pastor, sometimes a neighbor, sometimes a stranger on a bus who handed someone a tract and never learned the name of the person who received it. But the mark was made, and someone followed it home. Two men of God, centuries apart, looked at the same truth and said something about it that I believe belongs together. Solomon wrote it in Proverbs chapter eleven, verse thirty. The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth souls is wise. Six words at the end of that verse that carry more weight than some sermons. Not he that winneth souls is gifted, not talented or eloquent or particularly well suited for the task, but wise. The soul winner is wise. Keep that word, because Daniel is going to tell you what wisdom produces. Centuries later the prophet Daniel closed his book with a vision of eternity and a promise that I do not believe was fully exclaimed. In the twelfth chapter, the third verse he wrote this and they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. Read those two scriptures side by side and the picture becomes unmistakable. Solomon says the soul winner is wise. Daniel says the wise, or those who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever and ever. Not for season, not for generation, not until something brighter comes along, but forever and ever. The soul winner is wise, and the wise shall shine like stars throughout eternity. That is the reward of the Pathfinder. Not applause in this life, not a plaque on a wall or a name remembered in a building, but stars. Forever and ever. The permanence of that reward is staggering when you let it settle on you. Because it means that the work of a soul winner is the only work done on this earth whose return on investment stretches into eternity without diminishing. Every soul pointed toward God is a mark made on a tree that will outlast the tree, outlast the forest, outlast this world itself. But what does it actually take to do this work? What does it require of a person to be a pathfinder on the road to glory? The first thing it requires is that you know the path yourself. You cannot mark a trail you have never walked. You cannot blaze a route through terrain you have never entered. The soul winner who is truly effective is not simply someone who has memorized the right words or learned the correct sequence of scriptures, though the Word of God is never incidental to this work. The effective soul winner is someone who has been through something, who has stood in the darkness themselves, who knows what it feels like to be lost in it, and who has experienced the particular mercy of the being found. That experience is not a liability, it is a credential. It is what makes the testimony more than information. It is what gives your words the weight of someone who is not reading from a map but speaking from memory, from having actually made the journey. It is what makes it a blaze on a tree, a mark that says I have been exactly where you are standing, and I know the way out. This is why testimony is so central to the work of the church, not because we are fond of stories, but because a lived encounter with God carries a persuasive power that no argument can replicate. When a person stands before someone who is lost and says, I was where you are, and here's what happened to me, they are not theorizing, they are testifying. And testimony in the hands of God becomes the blaze on the tree that someone desperate and searching will one day follow all the way home. The second thing it requires is patience with the terrain. The wilderness does not arrange itself for the convenience of the pathfinder. The ground is uneven, the brush is thick. There are places where the way forward is not immediately obvious and where progress is slow, and the temptation to turn back is real. Soul winning is like this. People are complicated. Their lives are complicated. Their resistance is not always what it appears to be on the surface. What looks like hardness is sometimes simply fear that has been in place so long it no longer recognizes itself. What looks like indifference is sometimes simply hurt that has been buried under so many layers of living that the person themselves have forgotten it's there. The soul winner who quits when the path gets difficult has not failed to win a soul. They have simply failed to stay long enough to find out what that soul was actually carrying. Daniel's promise is worth returning to here, stars. Forever and ever. The permanence of that reward corresponds to the permanence of the work. When you help someone find their way to God, you have done something that cannot be undone. You have altered the trajectory of an eternal soul. The implications of that are too large to fully comprehend standing here on this side of eternity, but they are real, and they are the reason the soul winner does not give up when the terrain resists them. They are the reason a person knocks on the same door twice, leaves a message that may never be returned, prays for someone for twenty years without seeing a single sign of movement. You see, the pathfinder who has glimpsed the destination does not abandon the trail simply because the trail is hard. The third thing it requires, and perhaps the most costly, is a willingness to be inconvenienced. The pathfinder does not choose the most comfortable route. They choose the necessary one. They go where the trail needs to be made, not where it would be easiest to walk. Soul winning rarely fits neatly into a schedule. It does not always happen in a church building during designated hours. It happens in grocery stores and parking lots and living rooms and hospital waiting rooms and at the end of a conversation that you thought was about something else entirely. The soul winner is the person who is present enough, attentive enough, and willing enough to recognize the moment when it comes and to step into it rather than past it. The Great Commission was not a suggestion offered to people with the right personality type. It was a command given to every person who has ever been touched by the grace of God. Go. Make disciples, all nations, every kind of terrain, every kind of person, every kind of story. The sole winner answers that call not because the conditions are ideal, but because the command is clear and the reward is eternal. Think about what you have heard on this podcast over the course of these episodes. Think about the stories. Behind in nearly every one of them, quietly, sometimes barely visible, sometimes not visible at all, there is a pathfinder. Someone who knocked on a door, someone who extended an invitation. Someone who drove a church bus through a neighborhood, opened the door for whoever wanted to come. Someone who handed a Bible to a person on a ship who wasn't asking for it. Someone who said the right word at the right moment, not because they had planned it, but because they were paying attention. Someone who blazed a mark on a tree in that person's life and moved on, never knowing whether anyone would follow it. And then, years later, sometimes decades later, someone followed it. And ended up sitting across from a microphone telling the story of how they found their way to glory. Those pathfinders may never know on this side of eternity what their faithfulness produced. They may never sit in that room and hear that story, but Daniel says they will shine as the brightness of the firmament, as the stars for ever and ever. Every mark made on every tree, every door knocked on, every invitation extended, every prayer prayed over a person who did not yet know they needed it. All of it accounted for, all of it honored, all of it shining in eternity with a light that does not fade. That's the work. It is the most important work that any person with breath in their lungs can do. Because paths to glory do not build themselves. Someone has to go first. Someone has to make the mark. Someone has to be willing to move through difficult and inconvenient, none sometimes painful terrain, with nothing but the knowledge that the God who sent them knows exactly where the path leads, and that the ones who follow it will arrive somewhere worth every step it cost to get there. Solomon said the soul winner is wise, Daniel said the wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever. That's not poetry written to inspire a moment of feeling. That is a promise spoken across centuries to every person who has ever loved someone enough to show them the way to God. To every person who has ever blazed a mark on a tree and trusted that someone behind them would one day follow it home. Be a pathfinder. Make your mark. Blaze the trail. Someone behind you is looking for it. You've been listening to the Paths to Glory Podcast. To contact us, send your emails to Paths to Glory Podcast at gmail.com. We all travel different paths, so it's important that we remember Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Our paths to glory. Thank you for joining us.