BE CAREFUL LITTLE FEET WHERE YOU GO

Solomon said in Proverbs 4:26, “Ponder (make level) the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil.” (KJV)

We are hearing a lot about the right and the left. Most of it has to do with the upcoming election. Everyone wants to know which direction we are going. Do you lean to the left or to the right? According to Solomon, we should do neither.

There are many examples in the scriptures about “going.” The “going” was for different reasons:

• Abraham was told to go to a place God would show him. So, he uprooted his family and headed for a place he had never seen based solely on faith in a God he had never seen (Genesis 12). The scripture says, “So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him…” (Genesis 12:2).
• Joseph went to Egypt because he had no choice. His brothers sold him into slavery. There he was sent to prison; and then, because of interpreting dreams and guidance from the Lord, he was eventually elevated to second in command of everything, (Genesis 39-43).
• Moses was told to go to Pharaoh to deliver the Children of Israel from bondage (Exodus 3). Moses’ response to God was, “Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). He went because God promised to be with him.
• God told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to cry out against the city. Jonah didn’t want to go, so he went in the opposite direction (Jonah 1:1-2). Eventually, Jonah went where he was told to go.
• The disciples received special instructions from Jesus before He returned to heaven. Jesus told them, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15-16). Their job was to spread the gospel to the world, and that is what they did.
• Instructions came from an angel to Philip, the evangelist. He said, “Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert” (Acts 8:26). If you read the remainder of the story, you see that Philip met a man from Ethiopia, taught him about Jesus, and baptized him.

 Remember Solomon’s warning not to turn to the right or the left? Every one of our examples did that, except one. Jonah chose to go in the opposite direction. It took spending three days and nights in the belly of a fish to convince him to do what God commanded.

Look back at the passage in Proverbs 4. Look at Solomon’s warning in verse 26, “Ponder the path of thy feet.” That isn’t much different than the warning in our song, “Be careful little feet where you go.”

Jesus gives us a similar warning in the book of Matthew. “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).

Jesus speaks of the path to heaven. This path is narrow, but few people will find it. Why? We will have to stay on the path and not turn to the right or to the left. That is not an easy way to travel through this life. There are so many roadblocks: sickness, death, disappointments, and temptations of all kinds. It is easy to be pulled to one side or the other.

Paul, the apostle, is a great example of what our lives should be and where our feet should go. In II Timothy 4 he said, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (verse 7). He knew he had a crown waiting for him in heaven because he had stayed on course. He had not left the path. He had gone where God sent him, and he had not gone to the right or the left.

We need to be careful where our feet go, whether it is in the election, in our jobs, in our family life, in our church life. We must stay on course, not compromising our beliefs and not letting others pull us off the path.

Sandra Oliver