TEACH ME YOUR PATHS

“Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.  Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.” (Psalm 25:4, 5)

 

            David, the psalmist, calls out to God.  He wants to know God’s ways.  He desires God to teach him to walk in right paths.  He longs to be led in righteousness.  Does not David already know God’s ways?  Is he not familiar with God’s paths?  Is he not aware of God’s truth?  Of course David knows God’s ways, paths and truth!  He is the man after God’s own heart.  So what is he talking about here?  And how does it affect the way we live our lives?

            David knew things we either do not know or that we forget.  The Lord speaks through the prophet Isaiah, “Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:6-9).

            This is what David knew and this is what we so easily and often forget.  It is completely against our human nature to walk in God’s ways and on his paths.  It is impossible for us to think his thoughts.  Even if he shows us his ways and teaches us his truth and leads us on his paths we very easily return to the ways and thoughts of this world.  Even if we are born again Jesus followers, the things of this world are our default setting as long as we live in the flesh.  That is why Paul cried out, “Oh wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).  The flesh continues to pull us back into the ways of the world.  It continues to drag at our minds so our thoughts are caught up in the swirl of worldly things.

            God’s ways are not the ways of this world.  His thoughts are not the thoughts of this world.  We are still in this world and this world acts like a powerful magnet, constantly pulling us back.  So David prays.  He cries out to God.  “Oh God!  You alone are my salvation!  Save me from the ways of this world and show me your ways!  Deliver me from the lies of this world and teach me your truth!  This is what I want and I will wait all day for you to come to me.”

            Will we call on the Lord to come to us and reveal his ways to us, teach us his paths, and share his righteous thoughts?  Will we give the time necessary to do the waiting?  If not, we slip back into the world and its ways.  Benumbed, we begin to think like the world again.  We must cry out to the Lord.  He is our salvation and he will deliver us.