Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep Your righteous rules. I am severely afflicted. Give me life, O Lord, according to Your word! Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O Lord, and teach me Your rules. I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget Your law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from Your precepts. Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart. I incline my heart to perform Your statues forever, to the end. (Verses 105-112)
I love Space Mountain at Disneyland. It is, of course, a roller coaster in the dark. I ride it blind. The only way I'd ever get on it. If I could see where it went, how high it is, how deep the drops and all the metal my head could potentially crash into as I speed around the track, I would be so terrified I'd balk. I hate roller coasters, as a rule. Riding blind somehow gives me courage. Strange, I know. I sit back and relax, though, enjoying the fake night sky and able only to see just what is ahead, not all the way down the course.
What would it be like if God showed us the whole spectrum of our lives from the beginning? Would it be so horrifying that we'd exit the ride...or never get on? For some of us, the journey would be so exciting we wouldn't be able to contain ourselves and then we'd blow it. Try to get to the good stuff before we went through the processes. Or we'd hope to avoid the bad stuff by trying to make decisions that go around any suffering. The joy of the trip is the journey. Up hills and down. Oases and deserts. If we knew the end from the beginning? Well, that would be a spoiler alert for most of us. Like me and roller coasters I can see, we'd just avoid the stomach churning fear of looking at life as one big thrill ride prone to disaster.
Instead God gave us a map. A navigation device more sure than our GPS. His Word. The physical Bible and the indwelling Holy Spirit. On the evening of His arrest, Jesus promised His disciples that He'd still speak with them. "When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16)." When we ask Jesus for guidance, for light on our path, He tells the Holy Spirit what to tell us. Conversation with the Word of God straight into our spirits. And His sheep hear His voice. If we listen. Take time to converse with the Light of the world. And if we think we can stay on the path without hearing from the Bible Who our God is and what our God wants, we are very likely to veer into the path of an oncoming pile-up. Our eternal GPS has a map voice and a product visual. We don't drive blind even if we aren't quite sure of our destination. He is.
Every day when we get up, we, like the psalmist, hold our lives in our hands. Make decisions that may affect the outcome of our trek. It's all we have--today. If tomorrow, then we are blessed to move forward. Make no mistake, though, what we do in the moment is important to God. Did we look at the map? Ask Jesus to speak into our itinerary? There is no joy in the journey for me without my God driving the car. I drive blind. He knows the way.
I love Space Mountain at Disneyland. It is, of course, a roller coaster in the dark. I ride it blind. The only way I'd ever get on it. If I could see where it went, how high it is, how deep the drops and all the metal my head could potentially crash into as I speed around the track, I would be so terrified I'd balk. I hate roller coasters, as a rule. Riding blind somehow gives me courage. Strange, I know. I sit back and relax, though, enjoying the fake night sky and able only to see just what is ahead, not all the way down the course.
What would it be like if God showed us the whole spectrum of our lives from the beginning? Would it be so horrifying that we'd exit the ride...or never get on? For some of us, the journey would be so exciting we wouldn't be able to contain ourselves and then we'd blow it. Try to get to the good stuff before we went through the processes. Or we'd hope to avoid the bad stuff by trying to make decisions that go around any suffering. The joy of the trip is the journey. Up hills and down. Oases and deserts. If we knew the end from the beginning? Well, that would be a spoiler alert for most of us. Like me and roller coasters I can see, we'd just avoid the stomach churning fear of looking at life as one big thrill ride prone to disaster.
Instead God gave us a map. A navigation device more sure than our GPS. His Word. The physical Bible and the indwelling Holy Spirit. On the evening of His arrest, Jesus promised His disciples that He'd still speak with them. "When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16)." When we ask Jesus for guidance, for light on our path, He tells the Holy Spirit what to tell us. Conversation with the Word of God straight into our spirits. And His sheep hear His voice. If we listen. Take time to converse with the Light of the world. And if we think we can stay on the path without hearing from the Bible Who our God is and what our God wants, we are very likely to veer into the path of an oncoming pile-up. Our eternal GPS has a map voice and a product visual. We don't drive blind even if we aren't quite sure of our destination. He is.
Every day when we get up, we, like the psalmist, hold our lives in our hands. Make decisions that may affect the outcome of our trek. It's all we have--today. If tomorrow, then we are blessed to move forward. Make no mistake, though, what we do in the moment is important to God. Did we look at the map? Ask Jesus to speak into our itinerary? There is no joy in the journey for me without my God driving the car. I drive blind. He knows the way.
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