Even or Uneven?

Show me what you want me to do. You are my God. Let your good Spirit lead me over level ground. (Psalm 143:10)

Sometimes we want level ground pathways in life, but they just don't seem to come. We find ourselves in all manner of 'uneven' paths, trying us from every angle spiritually, emotionally, financially, and even physically. They aren't meant to stop our forward progress with Jesus, but they certainly put a 'kink' in it at times! It is never a bad prayer to ask God to show us to that level ground in life. In fact, he'd relish the opportunity to take you from the 'unevenness' of life's challenges into the 'evenness' of his peace, presence, and purpose.

You might find yourself there right now - facing challenges that you'd never thought you'd have to face. The more 'uneven' the path right now, the more you can count on God helping you navigate to 'even' ground once again. It might not seem like it, but that brutally hard path can open up into a beautifully wide 'path of purpose'. The purpose may not be evident at first, but the more we trust him to move us from one path to another, the more we will begin to see his purpose revealed. The 'passage' from one to the other may not go as fast as we'd like, but we cannot rush the things God has designed to show us things about ourselves or others that we may not have discovered any other way.

Two things we need to keep in mind when life's paths become a bit 'uneven': 1) He is still our God, and 2) His Spirit has not abandoned us to walk this path alone. God wants us to know what to do WITHIN the uneven path - how to walk safely through it, what he wants to reveal to us through it, and where it is we will step out of it onto that even path once again. I have never really walked a totally 'even' path in my life. Even the sidewalks around my home have rises and tripping hazards! The evenest path may not always stay 'even'! Sometimes we just need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to show us where to step in order to avoid the 'hazards'. 

Let your GOOD Spirit guide us, Lord. This is always a good prayer to open each day. Perhaps if we prayed this prayer a bit more often, we might just find the pathway we are traveling a bit easier to traverse. One thing is for certain - our own choices might take us over some 'uneven paths', but it may just be that God's GOOD Spirit is about to break us out of that 'unevenness' and into a the wide-open path of obedience. Just sayin!

Is it okay to just stay here?

When the Israelites saw Pharaoh and his army coming toward them, they were very frightened and cried to the Lord for help. They said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Did you bring us out here in the desert to die? We could have died peacefully in Egypt; there were plenty of graves in Egypt. We told you this would happen! In Egypt we said, ‘Please don’t bother us. Let us stay and serve the Egyptians.’ It would have been better for us to stay and be slaves than to come out here and die in the desert.” But Moses answered, “Don’t be afraid! Don’t run away! Stand where you are and watch the Lord save you today. You will never see these Egyptians again. You will not have to do anything but stay calm. The Lord will do the fighting for you.” (Exodus 14:10-14)

There are a lot of times God brings us to a certain point in our lives and all we do is 'stand there and watch', hoping for the Lord to do all the work. The very next verse is God's directive to MOVE. In other words, don't just stand there, but engage yourself in what he is doing. Whenever God tells us to move, all the inaction on our part must cease. We may be scared, filled with all manner of emotional upheaval, but the call is to move, not stand still. 

Don't be afraid...don't run away. These are instructional words. Put fear far from you because God is going before you. Put your action into moving forward, not standing still, but allow the stillness of God's peace to be with you as you do. We might just want to stand still, or even turn back the way we came, but God isn't working 'back there'. He is working right where we are at in the here and now. The action required is forward movement - the attitude of heart required is peaceful trust.

How do we get to the place where we actually trust God enough to take that first 'big step' into the path he has prepared for us? Some will say that it is easier said than done, and you would be right on that account! Peace doesn't always come in the 'standing still', though. If you haven't noticed, we can feel the deepest peace when we finally step into what God has prepared for us. When we are finally taking that 'first step' onto the path God has prepared, there is a settling of all our insecurities and uncertainties. Why? Obedience pleases the heart of God like nothing else and where obedience is the course one takes, the heart and mind are sure to be rewarded with his gentle peace.

While Moses' instruction may seem to tell us to just stand there and watch, the original text actually uses words that tell us to remain still, stay calm, and be silent. Moses isn't telling them to stay rooted in their past, but to allow the stillness of God settle over them while they move into what God has prepared for them just ahead of where they are. Maybe God is asking some of us to be still, stay calm, and just be silent, but he isn't telling us to never take the big step! Just sayin!

In that quiet place...

Be alert and think straight. Put all your hope in how kind God will be to you when Jesus Christ appears. Behave like obedient children. Don’t let your lives be controlled by your desires, as they used to be. Always live as God’s holy people should, because God is the one who chose you, and he is holy. That’s why the Scriptures say, “I am the holy God, and you must be holy too.” (I Peter 1:13-16 CEV)

In medical assessment, a patient who is less alert than their baseline assessment had been at a previous point might be under the untoward influence of a sedative, or perhaps have suffered a life-altering event such as stroke or bleed into their brain. To be alert, one is to be fully awake and able to direct full attention toward something. If someone is awake, but drifts easily back to sleep, without being able to focus or concentrate on what you are asking them to do, we begin to look for causes of this "drift" in attentiveness and alertness. It is this "alertness" faculty which gives us our ability to make decisions, engage in thoughtful process, and even follow along with a train of thought someone else may be discussing. Without alertness, we are simply "there", but not really engaged in the moment. To be less than alert places us at risk - for what we turn our attention toward is what we often pursue or become. When we are unable to focus our attention, the dangers are often great!

Be alert and think straight. If you have ever tried to 'be alert' when you are just a little bit scattered in your thoughts, you might find it is kind of difficult. Even when you have your thoughts well-ordered, you might find yourself drifting out of alertness just because there are distractions all around. The two work together, yet they are not entirely 'dependent' upon each other. The influences of life's demands place us at risk of decreased alertness and into circumstances where 'ordered' thought is more than a little bit difficult! When we are alert, we are keenly aware of what is going on around us. We process this "data" and form certain opinions of how it is we are to use it, reject it, flee from it. If we possess the ability to "think straight" in those same moments, we can trust the input to be "sorted" well and those things which should be embraced will be, and those which should be rejected will find their way quickly out of our minds and hearts. Obedience is based on being alert and thinking straight - for in embracing the "correct" stuff and rejecting the "lame" stuff, we are beginning to walk as we should - as obedient children of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Most of us don't consider ourselves as "holy" - we are just on the journey which leads to the incorporation of better choices, upright living, and honesty in our actions. In some sense, we see this as being "less than holy", but in reality, we are already declared to be holy - we are just in the process of learning to "walk this out" in our daily lives. Even when we don't "feel" holy, we are. What God is to remain alert to the things which will "dissuade" us from making right choices - in other words - be alert! Use some good "thinking skills" in making our choices - not allowing our minds to become so cluttered by life's demands and distractions that we make spur of the moment choices that are not well thought out. When we begin to live in such a way, the steps toward obedience are quicker and more reliable.

What consumes our thoughts will impact our choices. If we are "on alert" to what can so easily consume our thoughts, we will be quicker to reject the stuff that is just going to add "clutter" to an already complicated amount of thought. If we let our "alertness" drift, we might succumb to the loudest impressions we are exposed to - making our choices less than reliable and very inconsistent from what we would desire for our lives. 

When our focus is fully awakened, we are "alert" to the possibilities of what stands in our midst. Some of the time, we engage in life without bringing our focus into full "alertness" - we just go about life without really spending time to get our focus right. This is why I start my day with study in the Word, over a cup of coffee, and in a quiet place. I remove distractions, focus my attention, and let the level of "alertness" begin to bring order to my thoughts. Anything less would place me at risk of hasty decisions, and not very reliable actions. How about you? Are you allowing your focus to be fully awakened? You might just be surprised what purpose you might discover in today's activities when you allow such an awakening! Just sayin!

Alert! Alert! Alert!

Modern-day cell phones have those built-in 'public safety alerts'. Why? We want to avoid the harm associated with the warning or be on the look-out to help someone who is in danger themselves. The purpose of a warning is to give us sufficient notice to prepare or be 'alert'. Even when I take my car into the local auto shop to have them fill my tires with air and rotate them every 5000 miles or so, they check the tread and general condition of the tires. This simple practice is designed to alert me to the potential of uneven wear, possible sidewall damage from road hazards I did not recognize, or wearing tread that may result in the need for new tires. They are concerned about safety. They know I will come back when I recognize the need for new tires - sometimes even before I truthfully need them. I take their warnings seriously - because they are the experts! Why is it we don't take other warnings in our lives just as seriously? It isn't because they aren't delivered by an "expert", but perhaps it is because we are trying to be the "expert" in our own lives!

It’s urgent that you listen carefully to this: Anyone here who believes what I am saying right now and aligns himself with the Father, who has in fact put me in charge, has at this very moment the real, lasting life and is no longer condemned to be an outsider. This person has taken a giant step from the world of the dead to the world of the living. It’s urgent that you get this right: The time has arrived—I mean right now—when dead men and women will hear the voice of the Son of God and, hearing, will come alive. Just as the Father has life in himself, he has conferred on the Son life in himself. (John 5:24-27)

When Jesus takes up residence in our hearts, he expects to become the "expert" we trust and listen to uncompromisingly. The issue is us being asked for obedience and actually choosing to listen to the voice of the expert in our lives. Between thought and action there is always choice. It is kind of like the "dash" between two numbers. This "space" between thought and action may not be very long, but a lot is determined by what occurs in that tiny space! It is often the place where we choose to listen to the voice of authority (the expert), or we choose to live as the voice of authority (the rebel).

The voice of the authority is Christ. He puts it all out there for us to see, so there is no second-guessing his intention or purpose for our lives. It is urgent that we listen carefully to his words. As we all know, the space between hearing and listening is almost as significant as the space between thought and action! Hearing and listening are two entirely different things. One is casual, the other is focused and intentional. Jesus requires the latter. Belief should lead to alignment. We can attest to all kinds of beliefs, can't we? Christ asks for our heart's belief to align with our life's actions. In other words, when we say we put our trust in him, he expects us to actually do it. He is the expert, so we have to step aside and trust him to guide our lives as he sees fit.

Trust is the basis for relationship. As we align ourselves with Christ, we are coming into restored relationship with the heavenly Father. No other path exists to God the Father other than that of Christ Jesus. We take a step from being on a course with death into a lasting and permanent relationship with God's presence and peace. Life is not lived on our own terms. We may try to live it that way, but whenever we act as our own authority, choosing our own path, we find the "space" between thought and action doesn't always keep us from making wrong choices! Our thoughts may start out as good intentions, but they don't always end up in wise choices.

We have plenty of warnings, but we don't ask what they mean. If we did, we might just be kept from some pretty unwise choices which only end in "death" within our lives. It may not be physical death, but any form of "disconnection" from that which gives life is a form of death. Jesus' warning is clear - pay attention to the voice of authority in your life. It makes all the difference between life and death! Just sayin!

Sometimes we need to take the first step

If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed. (Proverbs 29:18)

Seeing allows us to perceive many times, but that is not guaranteed. We could become alert to something happening through our other senses of hearing, touch, or smell, but seeing is what often "connects the dots" for us. Some call this being a "visual learner" - we can read all about some process, but once we see it done a couple of times, we've got it! Without seeing, we don't have the fullest perception. Yet, it is possible to "bypass" this element of perception - functioning pretty well, as a matter of fact - but we miss out on the splendor of color, the mystery of the twinkle in someone's eye, and the awing wonder of following the trail of a jet high up in the sky. We function okay, but we don't "get the full picture" when our seeing is not partnered with us perceiving.

Seeing what God is doing is sometimes one of the hardest things to really comprehend. We often miss his subtle moves simply because we aren't tuned into him as well as we should be. I never actually learned to paint even though I was given great lessons by a woman living at the foot of the Superstition Mountains. Although I was exposed to her work, understood her techniques as she taught them, and had many of the same "tools" to use as she did, I never quite mastered the skill of watercolor. Why? I didn't put that skill into practice. This is often how we miss out on so much God would like to involve us in - we simply don't put into practice what it is he provides in the way of instruction or insight for our lives.

Although seeing is part of perception, it is not the end-all. We have to see and then "attend to" what he reveals. When we "attend to" something, we are taking it to heart. We keep it in the forefront of our minds, allowing the very thought of what has been revealed to permeate our 'spiritual senses'. It means we give service to that knowledge - we invest in it, spend time with it. We may miss the fullness of perception because we "see", but we neglect the importance of "giving service to" what it is we perceive. I know a lot of things about various people in my life - their likes, dislikes, what makes them laugh, what could make them cry, what words shut them down, what words build them up. How did I learn these things? By paying attention to them. How foolish would it be to know all these things and then ignore each and every one of them?

God's place of impacting our lives is at the point of our attentiveness to the details he reveals. Revelation is one thing - action taken upon what is revealed is quite another. If we find ourselves "stumbling around" a little in our daily walk, it might just be related to having NOT "put into practice" what it is we already have been taught. God knowing exactly what he desires to bring forth on the canvas of our lives. He gives us various tools, shows us the steps to follow to allow the creation of his "artwork" in our lives, but if we never pick up the brush and apply a little paint, we will still be blank canvases when it is all said and done! Just sayin!