In All Your Ways
I stepped out of my car after a long day at work with this part of the psalm highlighted in my mind. Lately I’ve wondered if I’m on the path God wants for me and how to know if I’m making the right decisions for my life. The modern adult life is full of many choices. Many of which have consequences that are weighty. I do not resent this and I am not complaining. I am simply acknowledging how overwhelming it can feel to have so much freedom, so many choices, and so many voices telling you what you should do. Or even to think about how this choice affects that choice and the next choice and the domino effects of it all. I was too afraid to step out in faith and take the small steps I sensed God was asking me to take because I wanted to know HOW it was all going to work out.
I would play out endless possibilities in my mind on the way to and from work. Trying to find a way through. Walking what felt like a tightrope between the rat-race of materialism and the dullness of an uninspired life. No luck with the answers. Until one day I was driving home, venting to God like I usually do. I pulled up to the house, put my car into park, and a phrase softly landed in my mind;
“He will make your path straight.”
A verse I had been meditating on for the past few weeks. Before this moment, it was the “lean not on your own understanding” that I needed to cling to. Before this moment, I hadn’t ever considered the last part of this verse. In all my wondering, and praying and taking hesitant, prayerful steps towards where I sensed God’s direction for my life, I had not known that it’s actually not my job to figure things out. And no matter how “figured out” my life is, it still is subject to change by God’s hand. I moved far beyond dreaming, and instead took on the heavy burden of trying to make a path for my feet instead of letting The Lord do it for me.
It finally occurred to me that my responsibility in taking steps and being faithful where He has placed me is enough. I won’t “miss out” on what He has for me because I chose this job over that one or this church over that one or these friendships over those ones (I am not talking about choices that would be sinful). Life with God is not a gamble or a game. It is purposeful yet perplexing. Wonderful and heart-wrenching. Covered with peace yet surprising in all the best ways. Life with God is having someone with you who’s already got it all figured out. Who knows the trails of all your adventures by heart.
So if analysis paralysis ever sets in for you like it does for me, take heart. Whether your’e thinking about option 1, option 2 or option 5,766, bring all of it and all of you to The Lord. Take it to Him in prayer. Make the best choice you can, and then let it go. Rest in knowing that you are in good hands. And He will make your paths straight.
“Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart
And do not rely on your own insight or understanding.
In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him,
And He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way].”
~ Proverbs 3:5-6 (Amplified Bible)
Father I pray that those who are reading this will be filled with faith to trust You wholeheartedly. Whether it is for the first time or the first time in a long time. Teach us how to know and acknowledge You in all our ways and to be confident in You. Thank you for You promise to straighten our paths. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
