Pathfinder

Every time I pick my daughters up from nursery at church, there are a billion stories to unfold out of their little mouths.  While my two-year-old, Daphne, babbles on and on pointing at her scribbles on her craft for the day, my nearly-four-year-old has much more to say.

Usually Matilda will ramble about the games and songs and show me her own crafty feat of the morning, and she usually gives a full account about who did what and if there was a toy she had to fight for that day.  She commonly throws in a detail or two about the Bible lesson they learned, but often this is mixed up in a jargon of realities and facts met up with her grand imagination.

"Mom.  We learned about Jesus and the animals and how bad they were with the Noah and that the rainbow has the colors and I still like pink but when we saw the red and blue and the whale was blue too and so big that Jesus made the whole world because that's when the teacher says today we have to sit down and I just danced and it was all about how we grow just like grass and sheep and they just eat it all up!"

You get the picture, right?

There's bits and pieces of truths in there, swirling around like a whirlpool of information in her little noggin, trying to make sense of what's up and what's down.  As a grown-up, sometimes we don't dictate it like a child rambling on and on, but I can sure get just as mixed up about what's important and where to adhere my focus.

I want to grow, I want to learn, I want balance, I want to love Jesus more, I want to be a better person, I want others to think I'm a good person, I want to make a difference, I want to feel secure, I want to be more humble, I want to understand grace, I want to forgive more.  Sometimes my brain can't keep up with all my heart desires and so I'm weary in my weaknesses and tempted to give up all together.

Then, last night, as we were praying our nightly prayers before putting the girls to bed, Matilda didn't ramble at all.  She just said "Trust in the LORD with all your heart.  Amen."  And that was that.

My eyes widened and I hugged her and we went on to talk about the snippet of the verse that she had learned in nursery that I wasn't even aware of her learning.  A real truth had STUCK.  Simple, solid, life-altering TRUTH.  As soon as she said it and saw how proud we were of her, she kept repeating it.  Again and again (and again) she has since said the verse, ingraining it not only in her mind - but in mine as well.

I can remember learning that Proverb as a young child as well, and I'm struck by how something so familiar can almost get too familiar that it gets lost in translation.  In a world where it feels foggy and scary to just put one foot in front of the other day after day, I'm reminded that God is with me, keeping my path headed in the right direction.

Notice that it doesn't say where the path will lead...it's doesn't say there won't be hills or valleys or even rivers to forge through.  It doesn't say there won't be bad weather or muddy banks or that we even have the right footwear required for the journey.  Don't let those thoughts distract you from the one thing that keeps us all focused on exactly where we're supposed to be:  Trust in the LORD with all your heart.