How many of you have just woke up one day, got in your car, went to the airport and randomly bought a ticket to a place you never heard of? Or just got in your car and drove to a random city? None of you, I would suspect. When you go on a trip or a vacation, you picked a certain place to go and then you made certain plans. Where you go is important. It determines what you will pack. You pack one way if you’re going to south Florida or Texas and another way if you’re going to Alaska. The time of year affects your plans … are you going somewhere in the dead of winter or the middle of summer. How long you’re going to be gone also affects your plans. Are you going to be there for one night, a week, a month? Are you staying in a hotel? Camping? Staying with relatives or friends? Is it a vacation? A business trip? We travel for all kinds of reasons and each trip requires its own preparation and planning.
When you woke up this morning, whether you realized it or not, you were planning to take a journey. Your destination was 155 Newfound Street [80 Rice Cove Road]. You thought about what you were going to wear after checking the weather. You had a timetable to keep. You may not have pictured it, but you knew that at some point you would arrive at the church, park, walk into the church. Greet and be greeted by friends. Sit down, look through the bulletin, maybe mark the hymns, and settle in. As you thought about coming to church this morning, you had a physical destination in mind but did you have a spiritual destination in mind? Coming to church is like getting on a train and then asking the conductor where you’re going after you get on the train and just going along for the ride … waiting to see where the train stops and hope you like where it took you.
And it’s often how we look at our spiritual journey. We’re just along for the ride. We come to church. Maybe we read our Bibles … we go to Bible study … we’re involved in the activities of the church … we pray every morning and we pray every night. We “do” a lot of things on our journey but how much time do we actually spend thinking about our journey … where we are headed? We assume that we going to Heaven, but what does that mean? How does that inform and shape our plans as we head home? That is exactly what we’re going to be doing for the next few months.
For many, many people, life is a journey from birth to death … death being the final destination … and it affects their planning. Since there is nothing after death but annihilation and oblivion, darkness … not even an awareness of awareness … all their plans are focused on the here and now … their day-to-day existence. What and how much they can get out of life.
What a contrast to those of us who have an eternal sense of life … that death is not the final destination. We are just passing through … that there is so much more beyond this world. The problem is that we’re headed to a place where none of us have ever been before. We know that we will pass from the physical world to a spiritual realm, leaving behind these physical bodies and taking on new “bodies” or new spiritual forms, but what that will be like we don’t know and won’t know until it happens … but we can’t assume that we just sit in the pew and passively let life sweep us along until we arrive at the Gates of Heaven … and even when we arrive at our final destination, our journey, I believe, is not only far from over but has only rounded the bend or reached a new level … a Promised Land with infinite mysteries to explore .. a Paradise where we spend eternity with an Infinite Creator who is always creating and always inviting us to explore what He is creating.
I don’t know where I got the idea but for years I thought of Heaven as some kind of Heavenly retirement community … a kind of a reward for a life well-lived where we stand around singing and praising God for all eternity … which is true … we will be standing in the Presence of God, singing and praising Him with all the Heavenly hosts, the angels, and the saints. The Apostle John paints a wonderful picture of Heavenly worship in Revelation but I don’t believe that that is all that we’ll be doing. I believe that Heaven is a wonderful, fascinating, dynamic place because God is wonderful, fascinating, and dynamic … so I have to believe that His kingdom would also be a wonderful, fascinating, dynamic place, wouldn’t you?
When God appeared to Moses, He appeared as a flame, a fire. What a perfect description of God. Was He fire? Or did He appear as dancing light that looked like fire? When Moses asked Him who He was, He said: “I Am!” I’m not going to delve too deeply into the breadth and scope of His name because His name is as wonderful, fascinating, and dynamic as He is. The best approximation of YHWY for me is: “I AM WHO IS CONSTANT AND ALWAYS CHANGING.”
Fire is a perfect example. Fire is fire. It is hot. It burns. It is and will always be the same thing … the same substance. But if you look at it, it is always changing. One of the fascinating things about sitting around a campfire is watching it … and it is never the same from one second to the next … it is never repeats itself. It dances. It moves. It is always fire but it is always in a state of constant change. And so it is with God, I believe. He is always who He is … He was and is and always will be God but He was, is, and will always be in a constant state of change. We can watch Him, we can study Him for ever and ever but He will never repeat Himself and we will never capture Him … we will never arrive at a point where we know everything that there is to know about God … we will never be able to lock Him into a single image … and that’s a beautiful and exciting thing because the Bible says that we are created in His image … which hopefully means that we are never static ourselves but dynamic … always growing and changing and evolving.
I mean, think about it. Who you are right now is not the same you that you were yesterday … or even five minutes ago. In the time that you’ve been here, your body has been changing. Cells have died. New cells have been formed. The thoughts that you that you’re having right now are not the same as the thoughts that you had yesterday nor will the thoughts that you will have tomorrow be the same as the thoughts that you have today. We may have common experiences from day to day … going to bed, for example … eating … getting dressed … walking … talking … but it is never the same from day to day because every day is different, unique … no matter how much they might seem the same. You’re not the same … the world, the universe around you … is not the same … and that can be frightening … but it can also be very, very exciting. I wouldn’t want to live in a world where every second, every minute, every day was exactly the same as every second, minute, or day before it … would you?
Now … we plan our trips … where we’re going … what to pack … how much money we think we might need … how long it’s going to take to get there … where we’re going and for how long … but … things can happen, am I right? The flight could be delayed … your luggage gets lost … your car breaks down or there’s traffic jams due to construction or traffic accidents … they lose your reservation or the place you chose to stay at isn’t as nice as the pictures on the internet … things cost more than you expected or you experienced some unforeseen expense that cut into your travel budget … the people you’re staying with are, well, they drive you nuts much sooner than you expected … but still, planning is important.
So, whether you know it or acknowledge it or not … you and I, my friend, are on a spiritual journey. We may not be starting from the same place but we are all heading towards the same destination and so, for the next couple of months, we’re going to consciously be thinking about our plans instead of just passively drifting along.
The first thing that we need to make sure of is that we have “trust.” As we venture into the future, we need to trust the One who will guide us towards our ultimate and final destination … the LORD! “Trust in the LORD with all your heart” (Proverbs 3:5). The question is … Who is God to you? I’m not being silly or rhetorical. I’m dead serious. If I’m going to trust God, it’s very, very important that I know whom I’m putting my trust in. Remember … I don’t pack the same for a trip to Florida as I would for a trip to Alaska and my impression of who God is will affect the level of trust that I put in Him. Is God an impersonal force? Someone who is distant and uninvolved? Then I’m gonna feel that I’m pretty much on my own and will have to plan and live accordingly … taking on the scary burden of all the “what ifs” and possibilities that could happen … and accepting the responsibility for the all the failures and mishaps. Is God a task master … setting up roadblocks and obstructions to challenge and test us? Are we lab rats, with God watching us to see how we respond or how long it takes for us to work our way through the maze? Rewarding us with cheese if we do good or shocking us when we do bad? Is God someone who follows along, like a nervous parent, waiting to pick us up and kiss our boo-boos should we fall? As author, pastor, and lecturer Trevor Hudson observes: “There is a picture of God drawn inside each of our hearts and minds. This picture, formed over the years through various influences, significantly shapes the way [that] we live our daily lives” (Hudson, T. Discovering Our Spiritual Identity: Practices for God’s Beloved. Downer Grove, IL: IVP Books; 2010; p. 13).
During this series, I going to actually give you homework. That’s right. Today I’m asking you to draw a mental picture of God and then we’re going to talk about it some more next week. For now, let me help you get started by using Solomon’s mental picture of the One in whom he calls us to put our trust in.
Most of the proverbs contained in the Book of Proverbs are “conditional clauses” … “if you do this, God will do that” or “if you do this, then this is what will happen” or “this will be the result that you get.” If we meet three conditions … one: if you trust the LORD with all your heart … two: if you do not rely on your own insight … and three: if you acknowledge God in all your ways … then: God will make straight your paths (Proverbs 3:5-6). Proverbs 13:15 states the opposite of this: “Good sense wins favor, but the way of the faithless is their ruin.” In other words, those who don’t trust the LORD with all their heart, who rely on their own insight, who don’t acknowledge God in all that they do … well, their journey is going to be long and difficult and most likely end up in ruin or at least end up some place other than where they expected.
None of us starts out a journey by stepping out blindly. Our steps are guided by our faith. The questions is … in whom or what do we put our faith. Do I put my faith in my own wisdom? My own strength? Cunning? Or do I put my faith in God? Do I allow Him to guide my steps? Peter stepped out of the boat and walked on water because He put his faith in Jesus. “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water” (Matthew 14:28) … and he did walk on water for a few steps until he looked down, leaned on his own understanding, which told him he shouldn’t be doing this, and down he went. When he swore that he would never leave nor forsake Jesus, again, he was leaning on his own strength and his own understanding and when the chips were down, he denied having anything to do with Jesus.
When we trust in the LORD with our whole heart, then our hearts and our thoughts are focused on Jesus. When our hearts and our thoughts are focus on Jesus, then it doesn’t matter what’s going on around us or what’s going on up ahead of us because we know that He is with us … that He is ahead of us … making straight our paths. The word that Solomon uses is “yashar” which means “to make straight” or “to direct.” The LORD will ‘yashar’ … direct your path. He will ‘yashar’ … make your path straight or smooth.
We need to pause here to really reflect on this image of God directing our path or making our path straight and smooth. Whenever a king or dignitary traveled, a road crew would go before them and make smooth and straight the path that the king or dignitary would be traveling. Potholes were filled in … bumps were scraped down … bends in the road were made as straight as the terrain would allow so that nothing would hamper the progress of the king or dignitary or inconvenience them. Beside, their ‘business’ was important and they needed to get to where they were going … to do whatever important thing they needed to do … as quickly as possible for the benefit of the kingdom and its people. This was the image that John the Baptist used to describe his mission in the wilderness. Quoting Isaiah 40:3, John proclaimed that he was the “voice of one crying out in the wilderness : ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths ‘yashar’” … direct … straight (Matthew 3:3). In Proverbs 3:6, it is not us making straight the path for the Lord but the Lord making straight the path for us. The Lord is the one how goes before us and removes the pot holes, the bumps, the obstructions that hinder our journey … if, remember, we trust Him with our whole heart. He will direct our ways … He will make straight the path of our journey to where? To a city? A country? No. He directs our way to Him. He makes the path straight … He removes any obstacles … so that there is nothing to impede our relationship with Him … both in the future but also in the here and now. He wants to make it possible for us to be with Him as quickly as possible and He wants to make that as easy as possible.
So why does He insist on us trusting Him with our whole heart BEFORE He directs our path? Ah … if I don’t believe that God exists, then I’m not going to let Him guide my path because, well, He doesn’t exist, amen? How can something that doesn’t exist guide my path? Or, let’s say that a person believes that He exists but they don’t trust Him?
That’s why I gave you that homework assignment and why I’m so serious that you actually do it. There are a lot of people out there who believe in God but they don’t trust Him. Ted Turner claimed to be an atheist, but the truth is that He believed in God and God let Him down. When he was growing up, his sister came down with a fatal disease. Every day he prayed and begged God to heal her … but she died. God was not to be trusted … so Solomon’s advice would fall on Ted Turner’s deaf ears and hard heart. Since God could not be trusted, it then logically follows that the only understanding that you have to lean on is yours or that of the world … or that of the world that makes sense to you … follow? They may acknowledge God but they don’t trust Him, therefore they trudge through life making their own way … either accepting the path they’re on as it is or trying to fill the pot holes, smooth out the bumps, and straighten the road themselves … exhausting work, believe me. And should they meet with any success in this life, they can take all the credit. “See … look at what I’ve done.” They don’t acknowledge the work of God in their lives because they don’t believe in God or trust God but the truth is that it is no doubt still the work of God even if they don’t want to acknowledge it.
The word that Solomon uses for “acknowledge” in verse 6 is “yada.” You might have heard it before. You know, “I ran into Mabel at the grocery story yesterday and … yada, yada, yada … you know how she likes to gossip.” It means “to know.” And again, we need to pause here and really get to “yada” what Solomon is saying here. Yada goes both ways. If you need some kind of specialized surgery, who do you want performing the surgery? Someone who just got out of med school and has only performed the surgery once? Or do you want someone who “yada” the procedure? Who studied for years and done the procedure hundreds of times, and “yada” … knows … everything there is to know about the procedure and who “yada” … knows … you?
The story is told of a man on the side of the road trying to fix his Model T Ford that had broken down. He had been working on it for a long time but he wasn’t having much luck because, well, cars were a new technology at that time and he didn’t have much knowledge about fixing cars. Still, he needed to fix it so … he was doing what he could but nothing seemed to be working when a beautiful, chauffeur-driven limousine pulled up behind him and well-dressed man got out and came over to where he was working. He watched the fellow for awhile and then suggested that he make a minor adjustment to the carburetor. The young man was skeptical but figuring he had nothing to lose by humoring the man, he made the adjustment and to his surprise, the car started right up. The young man was amazed. “How did you know?” he asked the gentleman. “Well,” said the gentleman, “I’m Henry Ford and I made the car so I know all about how it works” (Inrig, G. Hearts of Fire, Feet of Clay, amazon.com, p. 111). I can trust in the Lord with my whole heart because nobody … nobody … knows me better than my Creator, my Father in Heaven. And I “yada” … I know … the Lord because He’s given us the Owner’s Manuel … this [hold up Bible]. Right here in today’s scripture, Proverbs 3:5-6, we are told how to walk through this life with God in very clear steps. We trust the Lord because we acknowledge His existence. Our faith comes from our personal experience with God and from the experience of His people as recorded in the Bible. Each step of faith leads to another step of faith. As we continue to walk in faith, our faith continues to grow. As He directs us … as He goes before us and makes straight the way … we acknowledge that this is the result of His work and not our own. The fact that the way is made straight is proof that He is with us every step of the way, guiding us, directing us. Those who don’t believe, those who don’t seek Him out, who don’t listen for or listen to His counsel … strike out on their own and tough their way through life, touting their victories as their own and either blaming God or the world for their failures. But we have found that when we acknowledge His presence … when we listen to His council and follow His guidance … we find that He does indeed direct our path … a path that leads us home … a path that leads us to a deeper and closer relationship with Him and He will remove any obstacles that get in the way of that relationship.
And so, my brothers and sisters, let the journey begin. Every day, Jesus invites us to “Come, follow me.” As I said, we may not all be at the same place. Some of you may be embarking on the first steps of your journey. Some of you may be well-seasoned travelers requiring fresh resources for your journey. Some of you may be discouraged and are weary, about ready to pull off the road. Some of you may be disillusioned by the ever-changing spirituality that passes for much of Christian practice today and want to discover the true course. Others of you may have taken a few side trips and found that the attractions of the world weren’t as glamorous or as fun as the billboards advertised them to be. We may all be at different points and places in our spiritual walk but we all share a yearning for vital and real spirituality. “Wherever you may find yourself along the Way,” says Trevor Hudson, “a real and vital spirituality always stretches toward the transforming of our personal lives and of the societies in which we live” (Hudson, ibid., p. 10). Our journey towards a deeper and closer relationship with God is not something that just happens … we don’t just passively float through life and hope that we end up somewhere wonderful or nice. We have to be intentional and we have to be engaged in the process. As we fall into step with Jesus, through prayer, through our knowledge of His Word, He shows us His way to live and provides us with the strength to follow Him as He goes with us and before us, directing our way and making straight our path.
