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Ponder the Paths


Proverbs 4:25-27

Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
Ponder the path of your feet
and let all your ways be established.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your feet from evil.



I walked through Walmart, absently pulling the items on my list and placing them in my cart. Mustard, pickles, raisin bran, cottage cheese, two cans of Pringles. Wait. Pringles aren't on my list. They don't help my body. They reinforce the bad habits I'm trying to remove. But none of these thoughts actually ran through my head. I wouldn't allow them. It's too hard to face reality, to think about the choices I am making. It is much more comfortable to go with the flow of old, destructive habits.


While reading through Proverbs recently, I found the verses above. I swear I have read my Bible cover to cover, but these verses were completely unfamiliar. They hit me out of the blue and touched on a rather sore spot. I would much rather not think, do the easy thing, then consider my actions and the consequences that follow. Unfortunately, I act without thinking more than I would like to admit. Really seeing what I am doing makes me uncomfortable, because the things I want to do are not things I should be doing far too frequently.


But how often do we stop and consider what we put in our mouths, our ears, our eyes? Isn't easier to do than to think? Yes, absolutely. However, we are called to more than that. Proverbs 4:26 calls on us to “ponder the path of our feet”. No mindless walking through life. We must focus on the road we are walking, the habits we are enforcing.


The next lines focus on how we should walk that road. Our ways should be established, with no wandering. “Remove your feet from evil.” Not only should we be consciously walking the path of life, we must focus on the right path. We must choose to walk away from evil, from foods that harm us, from actions that pull us away from the race set before us.


When it comes to food choices, it is much, much too easy to mindlessly consume junk. The foods designed to be craved and binged, to fill our brain with nice feelings, will override our good sense. But we can't let that happen. Every day, as we live life, as we work to make good choices and establish new habits, we must ponder the path of our feet. Keep our eyes straight ahead, on our goal, not the sugar-coated lies that pull at our tastebuds. Don't let yourself get distracted. Stay conscious, make good choices, and work through another day.

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