“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.”
Psalm 25:4-5
God’s encouragement…
Crossroads are gifts God gives to us to direct our lives. At each, we choose one path over another. As my relationship with Jesus grew, I began to pray the words from Psalm 25. I yearned to know the Lord’s ways and be taught His paths. Jesus calls us to do this. In John 14, He talks about He and the Father making their home with those who love Him and keep His word. In John 15, He talks about abiding in His love so that we may keep the Father’s commandments and our joy may be full. Such beautiful words of promise!
God knew my struggle to intentionally put Him in charge. Would I be able to understand Him, I wondered? Would He lead me to do something I could not do? He assured me this is not His way, by providing details on how He teaches us.
The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Proverbs 16:9
Proverbs 16:9 says that the Lord establishes the steps when the “heart” of a man plans. God’s way would rely on the engagement of my heart to lead me. He then provided great comfort by stating that He will establish the steps. This wasn’t a test of my intelligence and abilities, but of my willingness to surrender and trust Him. The Psalm contains an additional blessing in its prayer: “for you I wait all the day long.” Trust and patience both grow as we wait on God to establish our steps.
The greatest blessing of trusting God to teach us is the deepening of our relationship with Him. Each crossroad comes when He has prepared us for the next step in our journey. His paths may lead us to a different destination than the one we set out for. Or we may find ourselves deeper in a forest than we imagined we’d venture. We can be confident His light will always be there to guide us to His paths and His ways. God blesses us, and others through us, with His marvelous, wondrous teaching!
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Image: original color pencil drawing “Crossroads” by Robin Lybeck
