Out Our Way: This is the trail - ride it! - Isaiah 30:20-21

Out our way, cattle trails tend to be pretty obvious and even a beginner like me got to become somewhat familiar with them. I knew where I was and where I was going most of the time on those familiar old trails. But sometimes those old familiar trails were no longer the right ones. When the reservoir and the creek overflows during the spring run off, a new trail has to be found.

Now Charley, who had ridden the Tiger Ridge area for years, didn’t need a map to know where he was and where he was going even when the old trails were no longer usable. When the old trail could no longer get us where we are going, Charley just turned his horse, Jet, in a new direction, called out “Follow me” and led me in a new direction and into sections of pasture I had not known before. Yet we always got where we were trying to go eventually because Charley knew what he was doing and the way to where we needed to go. Doc and I just followed, trusted Charley, and always got where we needed to be.

Old familiar ways in daily life sometimes get washed out by circumstances just like old trails on the Tiger Ridge. Going the way we always have simply no longer works. When the old trail is gone, “washed away” by adversity, tribulation and affliction, we are at a loss which way to turn. But we do not need to fear. As I had Charley to guide me on a new trail up on the Tiger Ridge, so God declares through His prophet Isaiah, we have “ a Teacher” to guide us around the swamps and marshes of daily life and onto a new trail.

Who is this “Teacher?” It is the Lord God Himself! Granted, we may not be like Abraham or Moses or Isaiah or any of the prophets and Saints who heard the literal voice of God. Yet we have the promise of the Holy Spirit who comes to everyday believers as surely as to the great and holy men and women we revere as vessels of God. 

Even I — certainly among the least of God’s servants — have experienced God’s nudging me down new trails I did not know and guiding me in ways I never knew. Recently I reread Paul’s “complaint” about the “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corintians 12:1 -10) and God’s response about it being necessary for Paul’s development as a servant of God. I have no idea what Paul’s “thorn” was — some suggest his constant illness, painful eye problems, his imprisonment or even the betrayal of friends within the Church. (Read 1st and 2nd Corinthians!) The “ new trail” Paul had to follow was hard, but God called him to trust and follow.

Paul did so despite the hardships and discovered joy even in the depths of hardship. Like Isaiah, he discovered “ this is the Way — walk in it” … and in doing so he both served God and drew closer to “the goal” he was seeking. He was reviled by his own people, imprisoned by his enemies and finally executed for his faith — but he died a happy man at peace. 

God says through His prophet: “This is the way — walk in it,” encouraging all to trust in the Lord and expect to both be blessed and to be a blessing. 

No wonder God gave me that catch phrase for these posts!

Brother John

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The Rev. John Bruington is the retired pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Havre. He now lives in Colorado, but continues to write “Out Our Way.”