Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God ’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. (Proverbs 3:5, 6 MSG)
This is a verse that I return to regularly as I seek to understand who I am and where God is guiding me. It’s such an easy verse – If I trust God, He will guide me. Simple to understand but so hard to live out. I want to know how I can do something or figure something out. I want to listen to my own words to find the solution to a problem. This verse says trust God, listen to God not to Scott, not to the world – they can’t or won’t guide you in the right direction. No, trust God and He will “keep me on track” or in other versions “ make straight your paths” (ESV). It’s this last word or idea I want to focus on today. The idea of keeping my on a straight path.
These last few months I have spent a great deal of time pondering paths. In the fall while up north I took a series of photographs of paths and produces a short book featuring them. I have written previously about my wandering paths (My Path). My conclusion from almost a year ago was this:
From my perspective this has simply been an eclectic adventure through life. But from God’s perspective it has been about relationships, disciplining (both receiving and giving), equipping, learning to trust, seeing God provide, and stepping out in faith. Every step that has been part of this adventure I can point out examples of how God was there guiding my steps, making my path straight. But those stories will have to wait for another time.
I admit I live a rather eclectic life. My education, jobs, and life experiences have challenged both hemispheres of my brain. While my various jobs have given me a number of platforms on which to walk my path and my education and life experiences have given me the ability to contextualize the setting through which my path lead these things don’t define the path I walk. It is, if I follow the advice of Proverbs 3:5-6, God who is defining my path. I keep wondering if “path” should be singular or plural. Does God guide us down many paths or is it a single path with multiple spurs? At this time I am leaning towards the idea that God sends us down a single path that contains multiple spurs that we sometimes need to walk down.
The path God has guided me on is one that has become well worn. I have been walking on it for the last 30+ years. I haven’t always been able to name my path, but as I reflect back it is the one that I know I have been on. The landscape that my path passed through has change as I have taken on different jobs, my experiences have shaped what my path looked like, and my growth in knowledge and wisdom have opened up different spurs to explore. So what is this path that I am on? What name have I given it? After much pondering and prayer the name that seems to fit the path that I am on is “listening servant.” Diane Mills in her book Conversations – the sacred art, says this “Our true paths are those that don’t excite us, but rather they are those that enliven us.” There are a lot of things that I do that I am excited about, but there are only a couple of things that really enliven me: listening to others stories and coming along side other and walking with them for a while (listening and serving).
In part two I will go into greater detail about what I mean by the path of a listening servant.
I leave you with this today – Have you ever thought about the path that God has you traveling down? What does it look like? What landscape does it pass through? What spurs might you have to explore?