Watch

“Watch the path of your feet and all your ways will be established.”  Proverbs 4:26

Watch – Have you ever tried to teach a child to ride a bicycle?  The first thing that children do is watch their feet.  They are so concerned about turning the pedals that they fix their eyes on the wrong thing.  The inevitable result is loss of balance, and down they go. 

There is a lot of truth in learning to ride a bike.  Look up, not down.  Turn the pedals to maintain speed.  Go too slow and you fall over.  Go too fast and you crash.  Balance is the result of speed and vision.  If you think about staying balanced, you fall.  If you stop thinking about the balance and just go where you’re looking, you discover (amazingly) that you can ride without training wheels.

The Bible is not an instruction book about balance.  It is a speed and vision manual.  It tells us where to look and how fast to get there.  If you are on a mission from God, you won’t need to worry about falling over.  All you have to do is look in the direction He wants you to go and keep on pedaling.

The Hebrew word for “watch” (navath) in this verse is a word that means, “to ponder or study carefully”.  Fix your attention on the path.  Distractions will only tip you over.  You can’t stay on track if you’re looking at the neighbor’s dog instead of the sidewalk.  Are you pondering and studying carefully the direction manual God has given you?  Or are you grabbing at it when you are about to hit a tree?  God gives you His manual before you encounter trees so that you can practice riding when it’s safe. 

Today:  I will assess my own efforts to ponder God’s path for me.  If I have been watching the scenery instead of the sidewalk, I’ll make a change today.

“Father, forgive me for being distracted from Your pathway for my life.  Push me back on track.  I need the practice.”