Page 97 began with flashes of lightning and the booming sounds of thunder as a storm rolled through early in the morning.  After being gone from work for two days, my morning felt like a Monday as I worked on my typical Monday tasks.  I know, most people dread Monday’s but I tend to enjoy them as that is my usual day to spend time with God working on the prayer guide for the following week.  As that task got shifted to today this week, it was a prayer guide focused on self-control that came out of my prayer time.  Once the prayer guide was written, I worked on some things in the building and started gathering the material, information, and books I will take to the Michigan Christian Convention for an Impact Prayer Ministry Display.  

After my work day I came home and continued going through the pictures I took during our little state park and covered bridge excursion.  It is difficult to go through 500 photos trying to pick out a handful of them to represent what we saw in order to share them on social media.  The photo I’ve included with today’s page is the first one I took when we arrived at McCormick’s Creek State Park late Sunday afternoon.  We had checked into our room and went out for a walk before dinner.  There was a loop trail marked “moderate” on the map that would pass by the waterfall and it began and ended near the lodge so we got out Susan’s trail wheelchair and started our hike.  With recent rains, the waterfall was beautiful so we spent some time there taking pictures before continuing down the trail.  It wasn’t long before the “moderate” trail became more rugged and Susan had to walk down some “steps” before continuing her ride.  The final set of steps we took led to the creek bed where we discovered that the creek bed itself was the trail for the next section.  The wheelchair wasn’t going to work on that so we turned around and went back to the lodge for dinner.  Our after-dinner “moderate” trail wasn’t a lot closer to my definition of moderate, but with Susan walking through some of the more rugged sections we made it through that entire trail.

Many times, people begin the Christian life thinking that the path ahead of them should be an easy walk.  When compared to a life of sin, the path taken by a Christian is often mistakenly believed to be a path of ease and comfort.  Unfortunately, many people become greatly disillusioned when their path of life changes from easy to moderate and then from moderate to rugged.  The blue skies, warm temperatures, and pleasant paths that we experience when the weight of our sins are washed away quickly change to cloudy skies, cool temperatures, and rocky paths.  And then there are times when the storms of life come and the walk becomes more rugged than we ever expected.  The problem, both in my hike at the park and in our Christian walk, is not that we’ve been misled but rather that we’ve not paid attention to the trail guide for either walk.  As I went back and read the information I picked up when we entered the park, the trail descriptions described steps, ravines, and the creek bed as all being part of the trails I chose to take.  The easy start to each trail wasn’t designed to fool me, it was simply a part of the ebb and flow of the park terrain.  When we read the Christian life “trail guide”, we find that God has made it clear that we will have trouble in this life.  Yes, there are times of peace and comfort but those aren’t designed to fool us into thinking the Christian life is easy rather they are designed to give us times of rest.  

The key to finishing the hike, whether the park hike or the Christian life, is to simply keep pressing on.  God’s call and expectation for each of us is that we would be found faithful — that when Jesus returns for us, we are still walking the path we’ve chosen in Christ.  I pray that you and I would enjoy the days when the path we walk is easy.  I pray that we would spend time with God in His Word so that we better understand the full nature of the path He has called us to.  I pray that we would be faithful in walking that path not only on the easy days, but on the moderate and rugged days as well.  I pray that when Jesus returns we would each hear those words, “Well done good and faithful servant!”