God's Path
by Pastor Mike Stine
I’m
amazed that every time I think I know what I’m doing
God shows me I’m absolutely wrong.
And every time that I feel drowned in a sea of
confusion and I have no idea which way is up and which
way is down I’m really right next to the shore. God knows what I’m doing before I do it and when I simply
trust that he won’t let me go astray; he will keep
me in check. Certainly
I do wander off of the path every once in a while, but
God brings me back to that path again and again.
He is faithful in doing this no matter how far
I stray.
But I
can walk this path alone.
God gives me that option.
There are times when I feel so certain that I
know what I want that I go after it on my own.
And it doesn’t necessarily mean that I want
my own way and want to have nothing to do with what
God wants. There
are times when I feel sure that I already know what
God has planned for me so I charge off on my own to do
it. But I
don’t ask him.
Sometimes I do know what God wants me to do and
I end up doing what he intended for me.
But there are other times when I may have the
right idea but I’m going about it the wrong way or
it isn’t according to his timing.
Then God has to bring me back to the path that
I should be on. Then
there are always the times, really far too many times,
when I’m just totally wrong and once again God has
to put me in my place.
It is
usually pretty easy to tell when I’m just plain
wrong about what I’m doing.
God has given us standards with which anybody
can tell me that I’m going against what God wants me
to do. And
they can show me exactly where God says that.
Although going directly against what God wants
for us is a serious offense; it is an easy problem to
fix. Simply
ask God for forgiveness and then do whatever God says
instead of not doing what he says. (This is an obvious oversimplification of the process but
works in with my illustration so just stay with me.)
Because these problems have a simple (if yet
difficult to actually perform) solution, this isn’t
the real problem when we fall off of the path God has
for us. It
is obvious that we have gone astray and then we turn
back to God and He makes things right once again.
What is dangerous for Christians is when we are
seeking God’s will but we think we know the way on
our own. Perhaps
it is only a short lapse of judgment when we think we
know better than God does. I find myself often trying to take as many shortcuts as I can
and when we begin to take short cuts with God, we
really start to run into problems.
Too
many times has my impatience lead to taking shortcuts
in God’s plan.
I, in my infinite wisdom, like to decide that
God is wasting my time by making me take the long way
around an issue.
After all, if you talk to a mathematician, he
or she would tell you that the shortest distance
between two points is a straight line.
God knows this, he created math after all, so
why does he insist on making me take the long road?
In my
experience, however, and it has taken me plenty of
tries to figure it out, when we take the shortcut
often we just get completely lost and have to wait for
God to come bring us back to the path.
Other times we find the path again on our own
and decide that everything is fine.
As a matter of fact, we just saved ourselves a
lot of time, or hard work, or perhaps some money; so
things are better than fine.
But in my experience, the ridge that we just
managed to skip past contained the most spectacular
view we could imagine and we missed it.
Another
thing I have discovered about this path is that we
can’t go back.
We can’t turn around to look at the view that
we just missed. No
matter how much we may want to go back and see the
spectacular view we just missed, there’s no stopping
and no turning around.
Just as we can’t take back the words we say
or the things that we do.
Once we’ve said or done something we can’t
take it back. It
is done and over with.
We do have the option of asking forgiveness but
it doesn’t make up for doing wrong in the first
place. When
we do take shortcuts and we miss something great that
God had in store for us he is a loving God.
He, in his wonderful grace, will at times, give
us another view just as spectacular further down the
trail. But
he also usually won’t warn us.
If we take the shortcut again, we’ll probably
never get to see the view.
So
how do we avoid the problems that we bring upon
ourselves by straying from the path that God set for
us? The
answer is truly simple, do what God says and trust him
to lead your life.
But if it was that simple to actually implement
in our lives writing this really wouldn’t be
necessary because none of us would have problems
following God. So
to really keep on the straight and narrow, we must
have a self-sacrificing attitude.
There are often times when we want to do our
own thing or perhaps think that we know better than
God and can get along without him.
So we must be willing to trust that God knows
exactly where he is leading us and that his way is
better than the way that we want to take.
Of
course this also is easier said than done.
For this I suggest earnest prayer.
We have direct communication with God, what a
wonderful thought!
So we may as well talk to God.
Ask him for help to follow his will and the
ability to do things as he wants you to.
When you really aren’t sure what God’s will
is in a particular situation but you know that you
want to follow whatever it is, pray and ask God to
make it clear to you.
Ephesians 6:18 says, “And pray in the Spirit
on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and
requests.”
Likewise Philippians 4:6b says, “…present
your requests to God.”
God wants to hear what we need and he will
answer us if we simply ask.
So pray, and God will help you remain on his
path.
God’s
path isn’t always the easiest way to take.
There are some places that it would make much
more sense to us to take the shortcut.
But we don’t know the path, only God does.
If we let him be our guide, he will take us
through the tough places, but he’ll also take us to
the most spectacular views imaginable.
And that is why we must place our trust in him,
knowing that he won’t lead us astray.
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