Path

Have you ever navigated the well-beaten path back home amidst a thick fog? Every familiar landmark or signpost is obscured. Distances seem weirdly warped, as you can see only directly ahead. Other vehicles are a watery blur and you put up a fervent prayer that everybody stays in their own lane. Nothing like the tangible relief of finally pulling into your driveway for the safe confines of home. That’s one eerie transit you’ll never forget.

After eighteen months of Covid, the fog really hasn’t lifted. Am I the only one having trouble with simple navigating these days? It’s nearly impossible to make decisions! The only thing in proliferation is insufficient data, shapeshifting factors, and perturbed people. Too many normal activities on hold. There’s just another violent zing when you think life may finally zag. Here in the fourth wave, vaccines and extensive protocols have still not navigated us entirely out of the cloud. Hope, as well as direction, is thin on the ground. It’s all shifting sands, which as we know, makes for lousy foundations. The fog breaks for a tantalizing second and then closes in yet again with damp finality.

When you’re used to pavement and clear signage, moving through life at whatever velocity you prefer, being reduced down to a slow crawl in one lane is challenging. When you’re accustomed to the blur of the Autobaud, setting one primitive step ahead of another on a murky trail going nowhere is the height of frustration. The remedy? Gently apply the mental breaks. Despite our arrogance and inflated delusions of our own grandeur, life is still lived on the atomic level. We shape it by the multitude of infinitesimal decisions made moment by moment. Our footprint on the earth is formed one microscopic baby-step at a time. If that’s the case, how should the march be conducted?

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delights in his way. Psalm 37:23

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path. Psalm 119:105

Nothing like Scripture to remind us that success in the journey is not measured by velocity, but accuracy. Just because you eat up the ground doesn’t mean you’re headed anywhere significant. Possessions and prosperity do not equate to perfection. Our journey through life is, first, last and always, measured by God’s standards. In His eyes, to seek Him daily, and walk in the words He has spoken insures we’re going the right way. Intimacy is irreplaceable. He reciprocates by illuminating our ways with light. Wisdom, knowledge, revelation and confidence become our faithful comrades. It isn’t only the path you take, but the companions you take it with that count. There’s nothing like the tremendous weight of His presence to comfort you when crazy twists and turns ensue.

There are many choices, countless roads. How shall we know which one to take? There’s so much fear for the future. So much hype about how to pilot the present. Are we capitalizing on the best careers, investing in gilt-edged stocks, amassing for retirement? Are we “Woke” enough; politically, racially or socially correct to the new gods of our age? These are the directions we are being subliminally driven down. Are we aware of the horde of tactics forcing us to accept conditions that are totally, sinfully wrong? The host of ways faith is being silenced?

We must return to the basics of grace and faith. The only way is to clear paths and emphatic decisions about right and wrong and the standards by which we will maneuver.

Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

But they said, We will not walk therein. Jeremiah 6:16

If ever there was a generation that took a great divide between light and darkness, it is ours. The changes in a couple of decades have been staggering. No matter how contemporary an age, we as Christians are called to walk in ancient, unchanging paths that guarantee our spiritual well-being. We are to be light to the world by our moral standards alone. This is a massive challenge. Never has there been a more critical moment for discerning where exactly you are placing your feet.

If there’s one thing this last season has taught us, it’s that any path can turn without warning. You go around a blind corner and run smack dab into the next challenge. Sometimes, it’s actually a blessing. Rest assured, however, that seeking the ancient path of good always ends brilliantly.

But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shines more and more unto the perfect day. Proverbs 4:18

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