My Dad’s Saturdays on our farm were work days for him, but for me they were more than enjoyable. We lived in a small town but the farm was an adventure in the outdoors. A memorable adventure that would seem out of place today perhaps. A trip to the pasture. The milk cows had worn the path down so well that it was not difficult to follow. A long trough that was one to two feet wide and six inches deep. Watch your step. Certain things need to be skipped over. From the barn to the fenced path, to the pasture, to the creek with all it’s gulleys and ponds (but mostly just a trickle). Wade the creek if you want but be careful of the leaches that live there, they’re blood suckers. Jump across the creek a couple of times as it meandered through the meadow. Scale the sand bluff and then throw rocks into the creek from the top. All the while generally following the path the cows had laid out for us to follow. Every Saturday you could be guaranteed that the cows would not change the path. They had worn that path so often that there was no change possible.

It took a few years of growing up to recognize that this same principle was true for all of us. I learned that I wore my own paths in life, some of the path was good and some you had to watch your step. It’s easy to follow the path of least resistance. We look for things that are good and comfortable and forget all about the need to “watch your step”. Change become difficult, if not impossible without help (or better yet, a whole new birth kind of life that we can not generate. In the long run, I found that the good paths I really wanted, I found described in Proverbs 3:5-6 …Trust in the LORD with all you heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight…  I learned to trust in God (Proverbs 3:5-6); to walk with His Son Jesus, the Christ(Luke 9:23-24); and to fix my eyes on Jesus to make my path straight (Hebrews 12:2). That’s not the path of least resistance, but I’ll tell you what it really is: It’s not my old crooked and messed up path that has been given new life, but me that has received new life by trusting in God, by walking with Jesus, and by following the Christ.