Let The Path Teach Us

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you and watch over you.
Psalm 32:8

Just a brief word on the way. As Paula D'Arcy writes in Love That Beckons, a Lenten devotional booklet, let the path teach us. I've been living with that thought lately.

The road we travel will inform our steps and change our course as the terrain changes underfoot, I find. Some days call for sure-footed hiking boots; others allow breezy sandals to fairly skip along a smooth pathway. All the jokes about women's affinity for shoes notwithstanding, our shoes can be part of the arsenal in our day's spiritual preparation. Shodding our feet with the gospel of Peace is a wise addition to our footwear.

Pam Holmes's photo above of the Honduran child is a touching reminder of the many children we met who had no choices in their footwear. There were no DSWs, no zappos.com, no TOMS available to them. Whatever they had was what they wore. Too big or too small? No matter. They wanted to go wherever we were going every day. Through mud, through dusty streets, through the rural village, they were skipping along and holding onto the big teenagers with us, riding the brawny shoulders of the boys and clinging to the hips of girls and adults as well. We bore as many children as we could carry or hand-hold at any time. Some would try to step in our footprints as we walked, like a child on a beach which they had never seen. I saw the little muddy feet after each afternoon's rains as they scampered through the village leading us to the work sites and homes. They knew the way and wanted to share it with us.

Do we order our steps after the One who alone knows the path? Let the path be our teacher as we travel this road.