Watch your step!

A friend posted the message on the right on Facebook yesterday. I had to admit it made me laugh because I’ve tripped over flat surfaces before. More than once!

It’s an odd experience … you’re walking along on a perfectly flat surface when, suddenly, your footing fails you and you “trip.” Over nothing! Of course, you still do the look-back to see exactly what it was that didn’t cause you to stumble.

Just as sometimes it doesn’t take a foreign object to trip you up, it doesn’t take the devil to make you fall spiritually. It just takes you, choosing to step where you shouldn’t. Sometimes, it just takes listening to the worldly advice of “follow your heart.”

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?” Jeremiah 17:9

“And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, ‘God is tempting me.’ God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else. Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death,” James 1:13-15.

King David understood, personally and painfully, that we don’t need any outside source to cause us to stumble and fall. When David fed his own desire for Bathsheba, he fell hard, a fall that led to adultery and even to the murder of Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah. David finally confessed and repented of his sin, and learned that even flat surfaces aren’t safe when we’re guiding our own steps. To help us be sure-footed, David wrote:

“The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand,” Psalm 37:22-23.

“Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. May your gracious Spirit lead me forward on a firm footing,” Psalm 143:10.

Are you walking with God, in the will of God, holding to His hand? Or are you guiding your own steps?

Scotty