Ponder the Path of Thy Feet

“Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.”—Proverbs 4:26

“Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee.”—Proverbs 4:25

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.”—Proverbs 5:15

In a most tender and loving way, God encourages me in these verses to look to my own path before Him - to rejoice in my own walk with Him.

Simply, He is telling me to concentrate on my relationship with Him.

Too often, my walk gets distorted by my judging others, either in a loving or a critical way, and how they are or are not walking with the Lord, and I get side-tracked from my own walk.

It’s like this. I am walking down the road God has for me. I am walking with joy in the closeness I feel toward Jesus, I am feeding on the Word, and I am rejoicing in the knowledge it gives me about Him. And then, all of a sudden, I see someone struggling in life because I perceive they are not walking with the Lord. I see them perhaps making a foolish decision and then I allow it to affect my walk in Christ. I think, if they would only [fill in the blank], they would be right with God.

Unfortunately, because of that direction of my thoughts, I soon lose focus on my own walk. And it is a struggle to find my way back to basking in the sunshine of His love on my own path!

So Lord, when my vision gets a little distorted, please teach me to pray for those who are struggling in You, and help me leave them in Your perfect care. If You decide to use me to help assist them in their struggles, then, please grant me the grace and love to speak Your truth into their hearts, giving You all the praise and glory for the insight. Or should You decided to use my actions to help and serve them while they are in this phase of their lives, please help me surrender my will to Yours that they may see my good works and glorify Our Father in Heaven.

Then, Lord, help me me go on to perfection – a maturity in You – because that is what You are encouraging me to do in these verses above and in other passages of Your Word.

In Your precious Name I pray, Amen.

Onesti, Romania (June 2005)

Long Enough

“And the LORD spake unto me saying, Ye have compassed this mountain long enough: turn you northward.”—Deuteronomy 2:2-3

Reading the Old Testament can be such a faith boost. The story of Israel's wandering in the wilderness for 40 years captures that spirit for me—how that God was with them and guiding them each day through the pillar of fire by night or of cloud by day.

“He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar”(99:7a).

“And when the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the children of Israel went onward in all their journeys: But if the cloud were not taken up, then they journeyed not till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys” (Exodus 40:36-38—Emphasis mine)

The story of Moses receiving God's Ten Commandments is another great example of God's divine direction—how God gave us His Law so that we may obey it and live the consequences of our obedience or disobedience to it. (Not for justification before God but for an unburdened conscience before Him along with a freedom to be in fellowship with Him.)

God also spoke through Moses, as was the case in the featured passage above. I love the clarity of direction in this passage. I love the phrase “long enough.” It's as if God is saying, My child, your trials, your journeys, are finished. You are now going to the next phase of your walk with Me. Oh, this phase, too, comes with its trials and battles, but this is the phase I have had for you all along. See, you are now going into the promised land. Despite your little faith, doubting the plan I had for you all along, I was always guiding you to this place in subtle and non-so-subtle ways. You may not have always had the sight to see it afar off, but nevertheless, your promised land was always there for you.

So it is when God speaks to me through my devotional Bible reading from His word with the teaching of His Holy Spirit, guiding me into all truth. It is as if I'm Israel with my own personal pillar of fire by night and of cloud by day, where He is guiding me to the right or left, but always into the direction I should go. When a verse strikes me in its clarity, I trust God is using that verse to guide and comfort me.

There were many years I had pined for a husband and of a family of my own. Upon giving my life to the Lord in my early twenties, God had planted that desire in me. Before then, I had it in my mind that I was going to be a career woman. I told myself I was allergic to men.

I believe getting married and having a family was God's promised land for me, but I had to wander in the wilderness for 14 years while I waited. During that time, God slowly changed my heart and made me ready to receive the man He had for me. God, in effect, at the end of my journey, had said I had been in my wilderness long enough!

So, dear reader, whatever your trial, whatever your waiting, whatever your journey, take comfort in the fact we have a God Who guides our steps along the way, many times despite our lack of faith in Him or despite our grumbling along the journey. He has a promised land He's leading you to. It may not be the promised land you were hoping for or expecting, but He wants you to trust Him that it is the promised land He has for you.

Someday, the promised land He has for all of us who call upon Him for salvation, will be Heaven, itself, where we will forever be in His presence. He will in effect say to all of His children, You have wandered long enough. It's time to come home.

View on Drive Home to Spokane from Seattle
(September 2007)

Search Me, O God

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”—Psalm 139:23-24

A personalized prayer on Psalm 139:23-24, inspired by a Bible study I'm doing on guilt and motherhood.

Dear Heavenly Father-

Please examine me gently and tenderly, as only You can, and expose areas in my life that harm me and others. When my daughter does something foolish (and sinful—as young as she is) I want to lovingly and gently, yet firmly, guide her out of harm's way. I want to be honest with her, as much as that may upset her, and lead her to actions and attitudes that are correct and that will benefit and not harm her or others.

This is what I ask of You.

I know You are my loving Father and You care for me more than anyone else. I love You. Hold me close, as You gently move me to being a better person, that person You made me to be, as You are my Creator.

Mold me and fashion me, most of all, into Your Image.

With Love,

Cassy

The Fall in Spokane, WA (2013)

Job's Vulnerability

“And he sat down among the ashes.”—Job 2:8b

Job was not scared to be vulnerable with God. His thoughts, his words, and his actions seem to regularly come from a vulnerable place when I read his story. His relationship with God was natural—truer and deeper than anything I have personally experienced.

I think of my fleshly vessel, how I often placate it, nourish it with treats, and give it pleasure at the cost of my walk with God. When it comes to my spirit, I starve it and put it in a corner to be avoided, so hopefully God will not see what I am doing to it. (How foolish!)

Job seemed to surrender to the events of his life with such painful grace. I do not think it was easy for him, which is why I believe he is mentioned in Scripture with high praise along with Noah and Daniel, as men who could only save themselves (and not anyone else) with their own righteousness, if that were possible. (Ezekiel 14:14)

I do not think he rebelled. He did question God’s reasons behind allowing all the bad things to happen, and he did feel sorry for himself. But he came forth as gold because, for one thing, he fed his spirit with the things of God prior to his world turning upside down. His relationship with God was on solid ground, and when Job needed to rest on his faith, he had a mountain of spiritual strength behind him to lean upon. This strength did not come from him, but from the One he had a relationship with, His Savior.

I believe if we nourished our spiritual life with Christ regularly, we would live a full and abundant life, despite the circumstances that come our way. I believe we would have an honest and natural relationship with Christ, in which we could approach Him from our places of vulnerability, just as Job did. I believe our daily activities would be clothed with the heavenly and the view of the world around us would be grounded in the Bible.

Life is not black and white. There is much grey in the in between moments that make up our lifetimes. We do not live in perfection here on earth. Job did not either. He had much to repent of at the end of his story. But what he did right, I believe, was he had a close relationship with God before, during and after his great trial.

Truly, God filled his cup.

  

Fill my cup, Lord;

I lift it up Lord;

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.

Bread of Heaven, feed me till I want no more.

Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

From “Fill My Cup, Lord” by Richard Blanchard

Taken in Harmony, CA.