January 26 2012

Level Ground
  
Reading: Isaiah 26:7-9, 7 The path of the righteous is level; O upright One, you make the way of the righteous smooth. 8 Yes, LORD, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.  9 My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.
 
If you are anything like me, you may chuckle a bit at the thought of life being level and smooth. Life seems to be anything but level and smooth. But, that’s not what Isaiah is talking about. It would be comparable to climbing a mountain and coming to a point where there is a ravine for as far as you can seen from side to side. Your journey and goal is to get to the other side to continue climbing up the mountain. You start climbing down into the ravine. It’s rocky and difficult but then you look up and see a bridge that spans the ravine. The bridge doesn’t take away the rockiness or difficulty of the ravine and the area that you need to cross, it simply makes the path level and smooth, well, and a lot easier, for that matter. The problem tends to be that we want the result of a level and smooth path of life, but we don’t want to have to wait for it. Yes, I said, “Wait for it”. Notice, Isaiah said, “walking in the way of your laws, we WAIT for you”. Too many times, the waiting is too difficult so we tend to go ahead through the rocky ravine. But, what produces the ability to wait? Verses 8 and 9 give us the answers. When your focus is removed from the path and placed on “desiring”, “yearning” and “longing” for God and walking with Him. The waiting doesn’t seem nearly as difficult because you don’t want to experience the journey without Him. So, however long the wait, you just know that you don’t want to go without Him.
 
What rocky or difficult ravines are you traveling through right now?
 
 
Do you “yearn for [God] in the night; in the morning [your] spirit long for [Him]”? If not, how can you get to that place?
 
REVIEW
 
How was your path today?
 
Were you able to wait on the Lord and did you yearn for Him and long for Him? How did this impact your day?