It’s much easier to walk without tripping when we’re on a sidewalk or road than it is when we’re on a rocky path full of large, exposed roots.
One walking on the latter is so busy focusing on not tripping — and being injured as a result — that there is little opportunity for enjoying the scenery of life or simply moving forward in a relaxed manner.
Even when we’re looking down to avoid falling, we still trip sometimes because our flesh just doesn’t do what we want it to.
At least this has been my humbling experience.
Yes, it is a less eco-sensitive experience to walk on an asphalt path to a national park’s waterfall, but virtually eliminating the risk of a fall for myself of for countless other tourists is a welcome trade-off in my opinion.
I was reminded of the above experience this morning during my devotional reading from the One-Year Bible. A segment of the reading included Hebrews 12:13 that says:
“‘Make level paths for your feet,’ so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”
This provides a vivid word picture of an ancient believer choosing to establish a safer pattern for getting through life as he or she rids his or her lifestyle of obstacles and ruts that typically slow down or trip the faithful.
Notice the word “make.” This implies more than simply finding the level path.
Yes, we should avoid slippery slopes of a worldly lifestyle that is filled with the rocks and roots of temptation and sin.
But even the level or gradually sloped paths of “good person” living will have rocks and roots that we have to overcome because even a small rock or small root can trip us and the result is the same — we fall.
And so, we “make” the path level by doing all that we can to rid our recurring paths of sin’s rocks and roots.
How do we do that? We identify those stumbling-block temptations (rocks and roots) that repeatedly trip us. And then we ask God for help to rid them from our lives, either by outright removal of the temptation or by transforming us so that we become immune to that particular temptation.
You have a number of paths that you walk every day or every week. Your path to and around your job. Your path to and among your friends. Your path within your home or within your church home. Oh yeah, and the path into and out of the Internet.
It’s up to you to make sure the path is more level. Start tossing aside sin’s rocks and roots that so easily entangle your feet (Hebrews 12:1) and start doing all you can to make your daily/weekly paths as smooth as possible.
That way, you can focus more on enjoying the journey rather than simply trying to not fall on your face.
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Thanks very much for your words of encouragement.Really needed to hear these words.