I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes (Psalm 119:59).

What are my “ways,” anyway?

My ways are my customary habits, my regular patterns … my “default modes,” that is, the behaviors I automatically return to, usually without thinking …  the “rails I run on” … my inner instincts and attitudes that get translated into my daily behavior, often without my being aware of it.

As you read this, you already have some ways that are making room for God in your life.  Keep walking those ways!

And we probably have some ways in which we are making less room.  Often without thinking about it or noticing what we’re doing.  Maybe “considering our ways” could help us.

We’re currently looking at the ways in which regular engagement with Scripture can help us make more room for God to work in and through us.  Engagement with Scripture helps us consider our ways, and helps us to turn our steps towards God’s statutes (God’s ways).

Let’s consider a few of the common ways of us modern North Americans.  Not all will apply to each of us, of course, but see if any might fit:

• complaining about leaders: political, church, the HOA, schools, coaches on kids’ sports teams
• confusing our personal preferences with genuine needs
• seeing ourselves as earners and owners: we have earned all we have by hard work, and therefore own what we have

As we consider ways such as the above, what might it look like to “turn our steps to God’s ways”?

• We would heed the Biblical injunction to pray for our leaders, regularly and especially when we disagree with them!
• We might pray with the psalmist, “Turn my heart toward your statutes and not toward selfish gain; turn my eyes from worthless things” (Psalm 119:36-37)
• We might become more regular in thanking God for all the good we enjoy, and learn to see ourselves as stewards of what God has entrusted to us (and which God already owns!)

Perhaps none of these examples fits you; that wasn’t the point.  The point is to learn to engage with Scripture in ways that allow it to become a mirror for us, a way that we can examine our ways and see how God is turning us towards his.

What are one or two areas where you think it’s possible that your ways aren’t yet aligned with God’s?  What Scriptures might help you?  If you’re not sure, whom could you talk with?