As a young girl, family members would take me to church with them. But my life didn’t change when I first heard about Jesus. And as wrong as it sounds to say, my life didn’t change when I was baptized at 20-years-old. My life changed, quite unexpectedly, when I started reading the Bible, engaging with Scripture on a regular basis, in the quiet of my own living room. I was a thirty-something mom of three before I began to understand the verse I had been singing my whole life: “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path” (Psalm 119:105).
This popular verse that’s a song always confused me. I couldn’t see a path that everyone else claimed to see. I didn’t get how God’s Word would tell me which way to go. All I knew to do was to follow those around me, good examples to be sure, but still not necessarily the way that was right for me.
The choices I was making weren’t between good and bad, right and wrong. They were between a good thing and another good thing. How could the Bible tell me where to go to college, how many kids to have, where to move, which church events to attend, or which job to accept?
The problem with doing what others are doing, no matter how much good you see in them, is that it may not be what God wants YOU to be doing. We all make different choices about how we educate our kids, where we live, what we eat, what we wear. The question is, “How do you stay connected to God so that His path for you is clear?”
Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law.
Psalm 119:18
Reading and engaging in God’s Word regularly can give you the truth you need for a greater sense of confidence and purpose. Staying immersed in Scripture lays God’s purposed path more clearly in front on you—just you. It’s not your spouse’s, your kid’s, or your neighbor’s path. We know that the pathway to God the Father is through Jesus the Son, but your Jesus-filled life will look different from mine.
God made each one with gifts, and to ignore the gift is to ignore the gift-giver. When I watch my friends serve the Lord, I see things I wish I could do, or even begin to wonder why I’m not doing those things too. In the same way, when I read Scripture, I see things I long to do, ways I long to serve.
The difference between the two is that with one I’m observing other people, and in the other I’m watching God. Learning from God’s own words makes the path in front of me much clearer. When I’m comparing my life to others, the path is hazy.
Spending too much time comparing yourself to others results in insecurity, jealousy, and confusion. These negative emotions paralyze. They make way for fear and hesitation to control your life.
But a life focused on God brings love to the forefront of your mind. To know that love, peace, and grace are there waiting for you no matter what can give you courage to move forward. We all “walk worthy” (Colossians 1:10) just one step at a time, making the path way clearer as we go.
There is one destination, but you and I will not take the same route there. To improve the chances that your pathway is covered with love and grace, peace and joy, kindness and goodness, use Scripture as your guide. It won’t be like following a GPS with each turn announced for you (in your voice of choice), but God’s Word can be your guide letting you know that you are moving in the right direction.
I will walk about in freedom,
for I have sought out your precepts.
Psalm 119:45
Freedom and rest are also found in God’s Word. To someone that is not a Christian, and even to some Christians, this sounds the opposite of what you would think to be true. How can you find freedom in rules? How can laws and commands provide rest?
Freedom in Christianity comes in many forms: freedom in knowing what’s expected of you, freedom from the expectations of others, freedom from your own hangups, and freedom to be yourself. Paradoxically, God’s Word gives you freedom from yourself and your insecurities while simultaneously granting you freedom to be yourself.
Knowing the boundary lines of God’s commands allows you to walk freely between those lines. For example, the command to love your neighbor doesn’t come with a check list of how to accomplish that. There is the story of the Good Samaritan, but what if you are never tasked with helping someone off the side of the road? How you choose to love your neighbors will look differently than how I choose, because we have different gifts. Instead of looking at how anyone else is doing it, we should be in the Word, in prayer, and in stillness to hear the Spirit of God.
In her book, The Armor of God, Priscilla Shirer discusses exactly what it means to “gird your loins with the belt of truth” (Ephesians 6:14). She describes how the Romans wore long tunics. For a soldier in battle, this can be cumbersome. So the soldiers would pull up strips of the tunic and tuck it into their belt, which was more like a girdle. Instead of fighting while long pieces of material could trip them up, they were more free to move, with less chance of stumbling.
In the same way, when you have the belt of truth strapped on, wrapped up tightly, there is more freedom to move about within the confines of God’s law. There’s less doubt about where you’re going and more conviction in God’s purpose for you.
God’s Word also gives you permission to rest, permission to take it slow. There are warnings in the Bible about being slothful, but there are also warnings about working your life away (Ecclesiastes 2:11). To toil and toil, without your eyes on God gets you nowhere good. When faced with the decision whether to work or to rest, I feel like I can confidently make the right choice when I have truth, and not the expectations of others, in my corner.
And maybe the most important thing I’ve found while reading God’s Word is humility. This humility knows that God is perfect and I am not. But God made a way for me to be found perfect. When he chose to come to this earth as a human, and then died on a cross, His blood did in fact make you and me righteous.
But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners. And since we have been made right in God’s sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God’s condemnation. For since our friendship with God was restored by the death of his Son while we were still his enemies, we will certainly be saved through the life of his Son. So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.
Romans 5:8-11 NLT
This is not a humility that says I’m no good, it says God is so good, because Christians are supposed to be shining a light, not hiding. To hold back what we’ve been given to share is selfish, not Christlike at all. Humility knows that God is in charge, and everything we do is for him and no one else—our love for others is because of His love for us.
That’s the key here: God’s love for you. When reading and engaging in God’s Word, you can see the love (and kindness and goodness and patience) He has for His people. This unending, boundless love is what sets you free to follow the path that you so clearly see before you even if no one else is walking it. You are free to make mistakes because you know that God is the one that holds your hand. Reading God’s Word and filling your heart with the grace that is found there, unbinds you from anyone else’s agenda and allows you to live your own life.
This is my comfort in my affliction,
For Your word has given me life.
Psalm 119:50 NKJV
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