Reclaiming Ancient Paths

This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, ‘We will not walk in it." Jeremiah 6:16

I admit I’m not one that appreciates the value and/or beauty of antiques. Like many, I have an eye for what’s new or modern. Much of advertising today is aimed at keeping us in pursuit of the latest it thing. Values such as modesty, monogamy, integrity, discretion are not portrayed as essential but are considered out-of-date. But is new always better?

In this particular passage, the people are instructed to pause and really look. To not just forge ahead making decisions mindlessly but to be conscious. Our lives are filled with crossroad moments and if we are not careful we can find ourselves on the wide open path of doing what is expected. Aimlessly following the culture instead of choosing a path with far less glitz and glam, accolades, or notoriety.

But the seeking for the latest and greatest is not where true satisfaction lies. Rather its discovered when go back to doing things God’s way that we find rest for our souls.

At this very moment you’ve entered a crossroad, which path will you choose?

This post is linked with Monday Manna

Pondering the Path

What trodden track are you trekking upon at this time in your life? What course of action or conduct is governing those  steps of yours?

Like I have expressed many times here, I am what I call “directionally challenged”.  As you can imagine, this handicap has left me headed in the wrong direction, lost, confused, frustrated and frantically trying to navigate myself back onto the right road many times.  On one such occasion, my  nephew asked why do we ALWAYS get lost whenever we go some where. Any sane adult knows that when you are in the middle of a lost episode is not the time one welcomes the opportunity to ponder the question of why am I always getting lost. Oh no, instead I want to know how to find my way out of it.

But if one only asks the how to get out of here question instead of the why am I here question, they find themselves repeatedly in similar situations. Am I here because I have been trying to be in the driver’s seat of my own life? Proverbs 14:12(NLT)  says there is a path before each person that seems  right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

Yet when I allow God to be my GPS He directs my life’s turns. And even though the roads He takes me down often look different from those I would like to take, I can be assured that He is leading me along a path that leads to life. But not just a life of existence but one of liveliness filled full of Him and all that He is.

You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:11

Linking up with Joanne at An Open Book for Monday Manna.

 

Steps Along the Way

As I walked this morning, the phrase-the steps of a good man are ordered came across my mind. In fact I’ve read this verse before but I hadn’t read it lately. As I began to ponder that in my mind, I thought about the many situations I didn’t foresee stepping into. Here is not the place in life I thought I’d be walking. At times it seemed like I’ve crept along in the valley of the shadow of death. The shadows and echoes of the enemy threaten to overtake me. You mean even those tiny steps in the darkness were ordered too, Lord?

But what about the steps I took along the paths that I was sure to be the right way but it only led to a dead end? And what about the steps I consciously made away from rather than toward you? Could they have been ordered too?

While I walked up this steep hill, that I usually choose to walk down because it’s easier, I was reminded of the hard places that I have journeyed through. Countless days I was unsure if I could press out another step and other days I was tempted to turn and walk the opposite way. But with the passing of time, I found those small strained steps had taken me to another place. With the change happening so gradually, I had not realized I had moved. The movement was not always physically but my perception, my hope, my faith, my attitude, my thinking moved.

Perhaps if we had to choose, most of us would prefer to walk continually along the smooth path. But despite where you find yourself (even those detours we knowingly take) there is One, who never loses sight of you. If you’re in a dark, dry or hard place just keep walking for the landscape is sure to change. No, I don’t give the false claim that it’ll happen today, tomorrow, or even this month BUT it could. Yet with assurance, I say that if you refuse to stop, you will step onto new terrain.