Thursday, December 12, 2019 Isaiah 26:7-9
7 The way of the righteous is level; O Just One, you make smooth the path of the righteous.
8 In the path of your judgements, O Lord, we wait for you; your name and your renown are the soul’s desire.
9 My soul yearns for you in the night, my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.
For when your judgements are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
On the Journey
This passage in Isaiah reminded me of a trip I took several years ago with our middle son, Ian. We drove from our home in Westwood to his new home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We were moving the last of his family items that couldn’t be put in a moving van: plants, computers, and two very cranky parrots that hung upside down in their cages, just behind the front seats, cautiously watching us and the road.
It was winter, so we took the most direct route, the level route, down Route 95. At the time, GPS was new, pretty exciting but very basic. It told us about the traffic and weather conditions ahead and rerouted us off Route 95, insisting we take the alternate route when the traffic ahead was slow. On Route 95, that is often. So, we were rerouted off the highway about eight or nine times. We noticed others, like us, had GPS and were getting off the main highway with us – all of us ending up on small, congested neighborhood roads with traffic lights. So, a long trip stretched out longer and longer. We finally arrived, very tired, and much less excited about the wonders of GPS.
So, why did this trip remind me of our Isaiah passage for today? A couple of things come to mind. First, there are many distractions that take us away from the path that God has laid out before us. They appear to be exciting and necessary trips off the main path but in the end do not really get us to our important destination. And, while the way of the righteous is smoothed out for us by the Lord, it is not without its challenges.
Let us pray. O Lord, O Just One, as we prepare during Advent, help us focus on the path that leads us to Your Son. Amen.
Submitted by: Cindy Zafft