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Jan 14, 2024 06:00am

The Path

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When you’re the kind of person who gets directionally confused coming out of a mall store, taking up the hobby of hiking can be an interesting challenge.

Once while hiking with my family, we missed a sign where the trail we were on took an unexpected turn into the woods. What should have been a breezy 1.2-mile pleasure hike suddenly became a 4-mile excursion. We unknowingly wandered onto a neighboring trail and had to backtrack all our missteps. An hour and forty-five minutes later, seven droopy, dusty children and two pooped parents collapsed in the van!

Jesus speaks about the narrow path and entering by the narrow gate when warning about the need for salvation: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13–14).

But even once we are on the narrow path with Christ, we must ponder the steps of our feet.
Proverbs is full of talk about paths:
“Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil” (Proverbs 4:26–27).

Just like in my tale, it is easy to get lost along the path. When you’re hiking, the trails are often marked, or blazed, in a certain color. There’s the blue trail that will lead you to the lake, the yellow trail that will hike up the hill and through the prairie, the green trail which is rocky and steep, and then there’s the white connector trail that will shorten the distance of your hike and supposedly make it easier. Some of these trails even merge for a short while and share part of the distance, but ultimately they don’t lead to the same end.

There are many times when the trail we are on splits in two different directions—here we are trekking along, carefree and easy, when we come to an abrupt halt. Which way should we go? Both trails look similar, and sometimes they are even blazed in the same color.

Life can be like this too—things are going smoothly, and then suddenly, there’s a decision that must be made. Sometimes it’s as practical as which job to take, which college to attend, or which thing to spend our money on. Other times it’s a spiritual decision—there’s a temptation to sin in front of us and we must choose if we are going to let ourselves be enticed to go down the “path of the wicked” or follow the “path of the righteous” (Proverbs 4:14, 18).

Many times there are warning signs. On one of our hikes, my children saw a sign that read, “Danger! Sinkhole ahead. Do not go any further than this point.” Instead of the healthy fear that sign elicited in my friend and I, the children shouted, “Cool! Can we go check it out?”

The Bible also gives us explicit warning signs:
“Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on” (Proverbs 4:14–15).

But often, like my kids, we see these cautions and yet we still want to tiptoe a little way down the forbidden path to check it out. It looks enticing and perhaps just a little bit more exciting than the path we are currently on—there are twists and curves, and the sense of exploring what might be over that hidden ridge is intoxicating. It couldn’t hurt to step off the straight and narrow path for just a bit, we think. I’ll be able to find my way back just fine.

But like the man who followed the adulterous woman because her lips and speech were enticing, he ended up in danger because he did not know that “her feet go down to death” and “her steps follow the path to Sheol” (Proverbs 5:5). He did not ponder the path of his feet.

I’m not saying watching our steps is easy. There are so many things to trip us up along the way—an unearthed root, an ill-placed rock, a teetering log, or just unlevel ground. But there are some things that can help us tread safely.

When trying to navigate the trail, it is helpful to have a friend along who is better at reading maps than you and not easily directionally confused. On the hiking trails, this is my husband. When we get to a crossroads, I will almost always ask him to decipher the map for me and point us down the right path. In spiritual life, this can be pastors or other mature Christians who have experience understanding the Bible and navigating the trail of life. For the writer of Proverbs, it was his parents who imparted wisdom and gave him sound instruction. It is important to have these wise, steady people in our lives.

It is also crucial to be disciplined in our spiritual lives, having steady habits of being in the Word, praying, and hearing the Word preached. The Bible is our trail map. When we are not disciplined to read the Word and let it guide our steps, praying over the path of our feet, then we will be easily led astray by our folly and die for lack of discipline (Proverbs 5:23).

Navigating a trail is hard enough under normal circumstances. Now imagine trying to do this in the dark. The way of the wicked is like that. “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know over what they stumble” (Proverbs 4:19).

In contrast, “the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day” (Proverbs 4:18). Being on the path of the righteous illuminates our steps. While, by God’s grace, we may be following the right path, one misstep, one wrong turn to the right or the left, one wrong decision in a moment of weakness or pride, can send us down a path we don’t want to be on—even if we don’t recognize it till miles later! The narrow path is not easy—Jesus says it will be hard. We may be tempted to take the easier route to circumvent the obstacles and exertion of living rightly. Sometimes we may even think we are on the right path when the wide and the narrow share the road for a while, but they do not ultimately lead to the same place—only the narrow path leads to Christ and everlasting life.

That’s why it is so important to not only be on the right path, but to also get wisdom (which begins with the fear of the Lord) to make good choices about where our feet will tread. When we get wisdom and prize it highly, God’s Word says we will walk in the ways of pleasantness and peace and our feet will not stumble. When we commit our ways to the Lord, acknowledging and obeying his desire for our lives, he will make our path straight (Proverbs 3:6) and guide us safely home.