Where are We Going?
Being decisive has never been a strong suit of mine. I’ve always been worried about making a wrong choice and ending up in a sticky situation. At times it has been quite a crippling fear. In my youth I can remember stressing over even the simplest decisions. I never truly had a sense of direction. I just drifted aimlessly, waiting on the ‘cosmic confirmation.’
Looking back, I realize now that, though I’d come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, I was acting as if that were not true. My stress over making the wrong choice betrayed the deepest desires of my heart. What I really wanted was an easy life. That was my destination and my idol.
The scriptures pointed me in a very different direction. Jesus never said anything about achieving happiness, or comfort, in life. He seemed to be quite preoccupied with his Heavenly Father. His target was God. He was a student of God’s law and lived it perfectly. And he died so that we might be able to share in his destination and his reward. That is God’s plan for my life, that I would have no other gods before him, and love my neighbor as myself. Everything I was stressing about paled in comparison to that simple command. As long as Jesus is my first love, the details of my life are much less important. If I hold my decisions up to the standard of God’s word, and I make them based on my desire to be more like Christ, then I’ll end up where He wants me to be.
William How wrote these stanzas as a meditation on Psalm 119:98-105. They have reminded me that though my life will be full of trials, if I keep my heart tempered by the word, I’ll end up moving in the right direction.
O Word of God incarnate, O Wisdom from on high,
O Truth unchanged, unchanging, O Light of our dark sky:
We praise thee for the radiance that from the hallowed page,
A Lantern to our footsteps, shines on from age to age.
The Church from her dear master received the gift divine,
And still that Light she lifteth o’er all the earth to shine.
It is the golden casket where gems of truth are stored;
It is the heav’n drawn Picture of Christ, the living Word.
It floateth like a banner before God’s host unfurled;
It shineth like a Beacon above the darkling world.
It is the Chart and Compass that o’er life’s surging sea,
Mid mists and rocks and quicksands still guides, O Christ, to thee.