Life can be compared with an almost
unending adventure, down a wide and sometime narrow thoroughfare.
At this stage in life we can see many places in life where the Lord had
His hand on our actions and the decisions that were made.
No time can I remember not feeling His presence.
Was that why in the teen years I wasn’t tempted to do the wild things
because “He led me in the paths of righteousness”?
(Psalm 23) On the way to
apply for a summer job at our local bank, I said, “Please Lord,” and when I
got the job which would last into the next year too, I felt like, “My cup was
running over.” (Psalm 23:5)
God has told us, “He will instruct us and teach us”, in Psalm 32:8 and He saw me through college with an education that would later proved invaluable in raising our children and after that when I was in the classroom myself.
When sickness came to the family and the little ones had colds and ear infections, it wasn’t easy to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart…and let him direct your paths.” (Proverbs 3:5) When one of the boys broke his leg at two years of age my faith was tested in the ensuing surgery, hospitalization, and bedfast condition for a total of three months of recovery. In John 14:27 Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
As our parents were aging, a struggle came with cancer affecting my dad from which he would die. And just five years later my older sister would also die of cancer. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…Psalm 23:4 and He was still by my side.
We need to feel God’s presence more than ever today as we face unknown enemies. We have his promise to “Instruct us and teach us in the way we should go,” found in Psalm 32:8.
Ecclesiastes 12:13 talks about obedience in this way, “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter; Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.”