Friday in Focus ~ The Narrow Path

by Alycia W. Morales
@AlyciaMorales

Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your foot from evil.
Proverbs 4:25-27

My husband and I love to hike. We will travel an hour or two to hit some of the "local" trails, we love it so much. Thankfully God has placed us in the vicinity of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, where trails, rivers, and waterfalls are plenty.

As I considered this verse this morning, I thought about how narrow the hiking trails we love tend to be. It's the narrow ones that are surrounded by
amazing scenery and lead to astounding views. Sure, the wider ones are pretty. And they're tempting, because they tend to be easier hikes. But we love the narrow paths that tend to lead us beside the waters and to mountaintops, where we can look out and see the earth below.

I also considered how Proverbs 4 speaks of keeping our eyes straight ahead, pondering the path of our feet ... It reminds me of how tripped up we can get by the roots and rocks that are in the midst of the paths we take if we don't focus on where we're heading.

Let your ways be established ... Many men and women have paved the path before us. They've decided that is the safest route and left clear visuals (in most cases) of which direction we should walk in. Kind of like the authors of God's word.

Do not turn to the right or the left; Remove your feet from evil ... There is safety on the narrow path, regardless of the roots and rocks, uphill hikes and occasional rickety bridge. If we turn to the right or the left, we have no idea what we could get ourselves into. We could come across harsh territory, a thickness of bush we could never make it through, dangerous wildlife, and other various types of harm. We could get lost and never find our way back to the narrow path ... or out of the woods. It is better to stick to the safety of the narrow path, is it not?

Sure, some of us are adventurers. Some of us love to explore the unknown. But that's for the experienced hiker who has been through plenty of training and knows very well how to survive in the wilderness.

Someone whose faith is strong enough to stand firmly upon when evil shows up around the next corner.

Tweetable:

#Hiking the Narrow Path via @AlyciaMorales {Click to Tweet}

A different view of #hiking... via @AlyciaMorales {Click to Tweet}