The Paths we Take

Hey, Doc and Deb, thanks for your comments on my last post. In response to Doc, you're absolutely right about keeping our eye fixed on our goal (God's will in our conversation.) My point here was to make sure we don't miss what's at our feet, in the here and now, whether danger or blessing.

On the subject of paths, I'm glad you brought that up, Deb, because that is the subject of this next post. I found myself exploring a man made path. The path I run on is asphalt and runs a 1 mile circle around the park. This path was rather wide, flat and straight, though overgrown. I happened upon some chin up bars. It seems that this was the predecessor path that was a one of those fitness trails now abandoned. I'm sure it would have been kept up if there had been a group of people clamoring for it when they stopped maintaining the path.

As the man-trail disappeared from years without use I decided to follow a game trail. Game trails are not near as wide and tend to be hard for humans to see since we're walking erect rather than walking with our nose to the ground sniffing out food and water. Games trails are useful in emergency times as they tend to lead to a source of water. In fact this game trail led me to a glade, a source of food for grazing deer, of which I saw two.

I was ready to begin to find my way back but decided I didn't want to back track, so I followed the edge of the glade until I found a new game trail that was in the general direction of the creek. Following that I found the creek after a short walk. The creek had a path along it, as they often do, and I took that for a short time before heading off in a new direction that I was confident would lead me back to the park. This time I followed another game trail for a very short time. However, I needed to blaze my own trail in the end. As it turned out I re-entered the developed section of the park within about 200 feet of where I left it.

So, what do I make of all this?
First, The Old Trails Men (and Women) Once Followed Are Worth Exploring - There is value in the old ways. Over the last 2000 years Christians have developed formative ways to study of the Bible, methods of prayer and meditation, and an ever evolving worship of our Lord. Some of these we we're better off abandoning. At times they become the focus rather than the avenue that leads us to the true focus of our worship. Still, many of them connect us to God in deeply profound ways and we shouldn't so quick to move to the new simply because it is new. See what Jesus warns to the church in Ephesus.

Next post, we'll talk about the other paths.