Walk in His Ways
This week, the Lord brought me back to Jeremiah 6:16: “…’Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls…’”, and added to it these two parts of Psalm 25: “Show me Your ways, O LORD; Teach me Your paths. Lead me in Your truth and teach me, For You arethe God of my salvation; On You I wait all the day.” Psalm 25:4,5 and “Remember, O LORD, Your tender mercies and Your lovingkindnesses, For they arefrom of old. Do not remember the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; According to Your mercy remember me, For Your goodness’ sake, O LORD.” Psalm 25:6,7
In the first part, David, a man after God’s own heart, king of a nation, is asking for the ancient paths. He is pleading with God to teach him those paths, to show him those ways, and he pleads for God to lead him, David, into God’s truth because…the Lord is the God of David’s salvation. In our times, it is easy to see Christianity as modern and package it as such, but really…it’s not. Our salvation, the road to God’s precepts, His plans, His ways…they are of old. A God who could unfold a universe and breathe life into it, a God who, with just a single thought, could change the course of history if He liked, this God is the great I AM and His ways are deep and incomprehensible, but we must look for His ways, seek them out, learn of them and know them.
In the second part, in an intimate moment in his prayer to the Lord, David calls out aspects of the ancient ways that he has learned, aspects that he says “areof old”: God’s tender mercies and His lovingkindnesses. Isn’t that beautiful? David is leaning on God’s character. The God that is awesome and to be feared, the God who could wipe out a nation from the face of the Earth, is also a God of infinite compassion. That is deep, and it is a joyful thing to know that our God is a Just God but He is also Merciful. And David asks the Lord to remember this, not to remember David’s foolishness or sins. David is able to call out these characteristics of God and lean on them because he sought to know the Lord and the Lord revealed Himself to David in these ways. Why? Because David stood at the crossroads and looked and asked for the ancient paths and the good way.
Today, remember this: We must ask the Lord to teach us His ways. We must seek Him out. We must wait on Him. We must bathe in His Word and His Presence and search out His Ways. Only then can we truly begin to know Him and walk in His Ways.
–Katie Botello