Skip to main content

Guides Me Along The Right Paths


The Lord is My Shepherd…   he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. (Psalm 23:3)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
                                      (Robert Frost)


           You know this psalm, so you know this verse. Have you thought about it. Again, there’s the “Ah yes, this is the life!” bit about his refreshing our souls and guiding along the right paths. But in the last verse, we were hanging out in green pastures and dipping our toes in quiet waters. Why do we have to leave? It’s like Peter on the mount of transfiguration. “Hey, Jesus, this is a good place for us to be. Let’s build a conference center and hotel!
           And there’s the whole Robert Frost thing about two roads. The broader, straighter path is so much more inviting.
           Oh, I’ve just stubbed my toe.
           Is that poison ivy?
          More importantly, what’s that I see up where the road curves? Lions? Tigers? And Bears? Oh my!
          No, Jesus, I really think we need to take the other path.
          On top of not wanting to go on any trail, and not being too sure about the trail chosen, have you ever thought about God’s motivation? He guides me along the right path because He loves me! That’s what we want it to say, and it’s true, but that’s not what the passage says. He does it so that I’ll reach my full potential! Well, that’s part of what it means that He loves you – if you define full potential in the same way He does. But that’s not what the passage says, either. It says He leads us along the right path for His names’ sake.
          For some, this will suggest that He leads us where He leads us to build His ego. It will look good on His resume. In some ways, this is closer to the truth, in spite of its deliberately negative spin. Consider some of the celebrities you’ve heard about. Some of them seem to go out of their way to make sure that they are seen. They call press conferences so they can donate one one-hundredth of what they make in a year to a charity, and we’re all supposed to say, “Oooo, ahhhhhhh. What a niiice person.” And then there are celebrities who interrupt their day to do something nice and walk away. Who was that masked man on the white horse?
          The latter type is closer to what is being described here. God’s names are representations of who He is. He does what He does, because that’s the kind of god He is, His name describes some part of who He is. Sometimes, that rubs the ego raw. It’s easy to pick up on one piece, or one part of who God is or miss another. For me in this case, it’s easy for me to pick up on God being loving. He guides us all along the right paths. It’s part of who He is and has nothing to do with me. He may as well be a robot or a machine because there’s nothing personal in it. But the reality is that God is also personal. He leads me along the right path because that’s the sort of God He is, but the sort of God He is is also intimate and immanent. We may emphasize characteristic A over all the others at one moment for some reason, but that doesn’t mean the others have gone away or never existed.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Higher Thoughts

  “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the  Lord . “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)           The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments,   for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord      so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:15-16) If you read about the ancient gods of the various peoples, you’ll find that they think just like people. In fact, they think just like the sort of people we really wouldn’t want to be around. They think like the most corrupt Hollywood producer or, like hormone overloaded teens with no upbringing.   It’s embarrassing to read. I have a friend who argues that because God is not just like us, He is so vastly dif...

Think About These Things

                 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. (Philippians 4:8) This passage is a major challenge for me. Like everyone else, I struggle to keep my thoughts from wandering off into the weeds, then wondering what possible benefits those weeds might have… Sigh. But as a writer, I have to delve at least a little into the ignoble, wrong, impure, unlovely, and debased. After all, there’s no story if everything’s just as it should be and everyone’s happy. As Christians, there are times when we need to deal with all the negatives, but that makes it even more important that we practice turning our minds by force of attention to what is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It’s just too easy to get stuck in a swamp. With my...

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...