The Comforting and Terrifying Truth

Yesterday, I had a couple of minutes at work to sit by myself and reflect on a few things. I have been praying through the psalms for the last year or so and I have been lingering in Psalm 119 for a couple of weeks. There is really so much there to think about, to be challenged with, and to be changed by in that poem.

What hit me yesterday as I looked out over a restaurant recovering from a busy lunch and becoming ready for an eventful night was the 105th verse, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path."

The beautiful thing about the psalms is that there seems to be a different angle to each and every word depending on where you are at in life. When we read thoughtfully and prayerfully, we see that there is so much more than information to be gained from reading our bibles. If we listen, we understand that God says something nuanced specifically toward our situation each day in the psalms.

We live in a world of seemingly endless possibilities. What career path will we choose? Who will we marry? When will we have kids? What will we do to support these kids? Where will we live? What 401k plan will we invest in? Where will we have Christmas dinner this year? Ham or Turkey? What restaurant will we eat at tonight? What tv show will we watch when we get home? What color socks will we wear?

The possibilities sometimes move from an exciting array of potentialities to a terrifying matrix of irreversible and endless decisions.

Here is where that simple verse in the psalm can give us great comfort. God has a path for our lives. There are specific steps to each of our daily grinds that he has set forth since he even set the earth on its axis. This path may well include hard times. This path will definitely include our missteps. This path will definitely include pain.

But the more we get to know God, the more comforting it is that he has set forth a path for us. We start to realize that his plans are good for us. We begin to see that he is in our corner, that he is on our side.

As terrifying as the steps may be, we can start to rest in the fact that a good God has called them into existence.

But we will walk in the darkness until we crack open the bible for more than just an information download. We need to hear from this Creator. We need a word from the one who calls all the shots. We need to learn how to express our frustration, anger, joy, contempt, thanksgiving and hard-won belief toward this God. This only comes when we start to really care about what he has to say to us on a day by day basis.

He has promised us that he will show us not possibilities but the realities about our lives. He himself will be the lamp that exposes our steps, bringing us from stumbling in the darkness to walking in freedom.

Is it a comforting thing that God orders your steps? Why or why not?