Watch the path of your feet and
all your ways will be established. 

Proverbs: 4:26

Proverbs has much to say about paths and planning. Living life willy-nilly and believing that all will go well somehow by chance and happenstance doesn’t really work: at least not for long. Everything from plane flight schedules to job expectations to banking regulations (bad checks and the like are such a nuisance!) all scream, “You better make some plans and good ones.” Almost everything in life turns out better with just even a little bit of planning. 

A major component of good planning is beginning the plan on the right path and then staying on that path! For instance, if you want to vacation in Florida but turn left in the direction of Maine, all the planning of gas stops and potty breaks and hotel reservations will not change the fact that you will end up in Maine and not Florida! Think this can’t happen? Years ago, long before cell phones and GPS, a friend of mine’s husband took over driver duties for the night shift while my friend and their small children slept. They we trying to get back to Cleveland, Ohio from New York. When my friend woke hours later during a pit stop, they were in Virginia heading south; not in Pennsylvania heading east to Ohio; where they were supposed to be! Just one slip of direction unto the wrong interstate in the middle of the night took them onto the wrong path and many hours lost.

We are warned in our key verse to watch the path of our feet. The idea is not just a one-time look to make sure we are on solid footing and on the right path. The idea is to be always watchful. Experienced hikers know they have to trust a compass and not just their eyes to stay on the path that will lead them out of a heavily wooded area. They also need to watch for tree roots and sharp rocks and animal tracks. ‘Urban jungles’ are no different. Have you ever lost your car in a Walmart parking lot? You didn’t mark in your mind the right path (row) to get back to your car and now that giant red pickup you parked by is gone!

It sounds old fashioned to have our ways established. It doesn’t fit the modern narrative to have a free spirit and toss aside all hindrances that would take away that freedom. Rarely does that plan, it is a plan to not plan, and that path of no establishments end well. Just listen to the stories of the homeless population or talk to parents with adult children living in their basements playing Nintendo 24 hrs a day or ask the residents in a drug rehab center just how their path of ‘freedom’ has worked out for them. 

Your word is a lamp unto me feet and light unto my path.

Psalm 119:105

God’s plan, His path, His establishment for us it the only true path to true freedom. Let’s spend 31 Days discovering God’s very best for us!