Ponder the path of Your feet, not your neighbor's path

​Today, Goff reflects on this idea of what it looks like to follow Jesus. He suggests that too often we form pictures of what our walk with Jesus might look like based on the walk we see other people taking with him. Our walk should look different than someone else's because, in Goff's words, "he created us with special gifts and passions that are uniquely suited to meet different needs in the world."

I struggled with this for years. When I became a Christian I kept looking at the people around me to try to figure out what "being a Christian" looks like. I'd chosen to be this thing in life - a Christian - so I wanted to look as much like that thing as possible. Many times I found myself feeling less than Christian because I couldn't live up to the picture others were living out with their Christianity.

What I've come to believe today, after years of living in my faith, is I didn't choose a thing way back then. I chose a person. I didn't chose a path I wanted to look like, but a person I wanted to walk on the path with.

You know, when we have people in our lives that we truly love, we want to walk with them, when they feel far away from us we find ourselves wanting to walk toward them, they are the people who shape the kind of person we want to be. I believe God puts those people in our lives to help us begin to understand what it feels like to walk with Jesus - and to walk toward Him.

Goff shares a scripture today - Proverbs 4:25 - which says:

Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.

Today, I know being a Christian doesn't mean finding that ONE Christian path in the world. Instead, I know being a Christian is a challenge for me to know who it is my eyes are pointed toward; who do I see at the end of my path as I gaze ahead?

You know, the next piece of that scripture that Goff didn't share says:

Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.

I love that - ponder the path of YOUR feet. Not the path of a neighbor or friend or family member. Ponder the direction of your path - your heart - because it's unique.

I've found the quickest way for me to lose sight of what it means for me to walk with Jesus is when I start pondering the path of someone else's feet. There's no quicker way to forget I've been created special, with unique gifts, than believing that has anything to do with anyone other than the one who gave me those gifts.