Ponder the Path

“Ponder the path of your feet;
then all your ways will be sure…”
Proverbs 4:26 (ESV)

To ponder our way requires us to slow the course of our decisions and exercise the God-given privilege of freewill. In the press of this electronic age, we are bombarded with offers, choices, demands, and temptations, all presented with immediacy. Often, these things come with deceit and hidden agendas.

One of the definitions associated with the Hebrew word translated as “ponder” from the Ancient Hebrew pictographs is:

“The balance scale that is used to weigh objects. When the two sides of the balance are level, the weight is known.”
(Jeff A. Benner – (“The Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet”)

This insight conveys a life that is characterized by careful consideration of choices. It is a truth that brings conviction to my own heart. I prayerfully desire to bring my will into the “just weight” of His Will.

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus…”
Hebrews 12:1-2 (ESV)

There are “weights” that keep us from “running the race” that is set before us. Weights of carnal desires, stubbornness, and selfishness that must be discarded if we are to finish our journey in the joy and strength of our God.

If the scales of my heart are unequal to His weight in the pondering of things before me, may I choose that which is equal in His eyes. Peace comes from being in the Will of God.

“A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.”
Deuteronomy 25:15 (ESV)

Related Post: The Renewing Work of Christ

“In such a world as this, with such hearts as ours, weakness is wickedness in the long run. Whoever lets himself be shaped and guided by any thing lower than an inflexible will, fixed in obedience to God, will in the end be shaped into a deformity, and guided to wreck and ruin.”
— Alexander Maclaren

“Who is the man who fears the LORD?
Him will He instruct in the way that he should choose.”
Psalm 25:12

“Consider and act with reference to the true ends of existence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.”
— E. H. Chapin

“Ponder the path of your feet…”

Brian Troxel