Where to?

Psalm 119:105-106 – 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.

Do you ever start traveling without knowing where you’re going? I’m not talking about just going for a ride, then traveling is the destination and 99 times out of 100 you end up where you started. No, I’m asking about those times when you are undertaking a journey. It might be trying to get from point A to point B, but this could also mean when you are setting out to plan your career, your life, or your children’s’ future. 

More often than not, we want to have a full plan in place—with strict step-by-step instructions and regular progress reports—a clear path to get us to our goal. Unfortunately, that’s not always available. Sometimes we can only see our next step, and we’re asked to move. We may not be ready. We may not know where this path will lead. We just know that God is calling us to move forward on a path that will ultimately bring us closer to Him.

There’s a quote (that is much older than Frozen II) that says, “when you don’t know what to do next, just do the next right thing.” And how do we know the next right thing? By having the word as a lamp to our feet. By using the word of God to guide our actions. Now in our modern world we have a lot of people claiming to do that, and it reminds me of another old quote, “people too often use the Bible the way a drunkard uses a lamppost, for support rather than illumination.”

When we interact with the word of God, we should be looking to receive knowledge, instruction, and illumination. Sadly, many people scour the scripture for vaguely related and out of context verses that support their political opinions. As Christians, we have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep God’s righteous rules. This sounds a lot weightier than it actually is.

One of the earliest instructions God gave to his people was “be Holy for I am Holy.” This is the oath we are agreeing to when we call ourselves Christians. It is an oath we will fail from time to time. Thankfully God only wants us to get up, try again, and let his word that we’ve returned to be the lamp for our feet and the light for our path.

For you today, what is the next right thing you can do?