Have Your Roads Been Made Smooth?

A bulldozer roars to life as it bellows out a thick black cloud of smoke. Soil boils over the push blade as the tracks creak and squeal along. Out ahead, a surveyor pounds stakes in the ground marking out alignments and elevations.

Every day, thousands of these large machines carve out stretches of highways and roads to accommodate our ever-increasing need for automobile infrastructure. Operating costs can run up into the thousands of dollars per day.

Because these operations are so massive, plans must be laid out meticulously before careful construction to ensure the process is done properly. Approaching the road-building process haphazardly can yield disastrous results such as rough and dangerous roadways, water drainage issues or even a road that goes to the wrong destination! In such instances, hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of work can be wasted.

Christians face a similar process. Disaster can come on us if we are careless in planning our lives, if we do not think through the best ways to reach goals—big or small.

The Bible provides important instruction regarding the Christian “road-building” process that can help ensure we plan out our futures and progress toward our goals in life. Proverbs 4:26 states: “Ponder the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established.”

God wants our ways to be established—upright and rendered sure—before setting out on a course in life. How do we accomplish this? Look at the very first word of the verse in Proverbs—ponder.

The word translated ponder in this verse means to “roll flat, prepare (a road)” according to Strong’s concordance. It also is rendered “carefully measure” (International Standard Version) and “make level” (American Standard Version).

To “roll flat” and make level our own paths requires planning and effort, but the end results are worth it.

The Road Ahead

Planning the way forward is the focus of Proverbs 4:26. In order to experience a “smoother ride” to your destination, you should think through what is ahead.

This begins with daily planning. As you awaken each morning, thoughts of the day should begin to take shape. Think of what tasks you must accomplish and how you will accomplish them. Some even find benefit in planning their day the night before to ensure they can start the following day on the right foot.

On work days, run through in your mind what you want to get done and how to do it. Also think of specific tasks and events in your day that you speculate may become a problem. Is there a particularly difficult person you know you will have to deal with? If so, mentally take yourself through the steps of what you will say, or not say, to the person to ensure you do not cause problems. Perhaps there is a long-term project you have been working on that requires scores of hours to fully accomplish. In such cases it is helpful to plan a day-by-day approach to getting it done.

Maybe you have some free time after your daily obligations are over. How do you plan to spend that time? Sitting in front of the television to catch up on news or enjoy your favorite show? What about exercising, pursuing a hobby or doing something beneficial for someone else? Making your decision in advance helps you have a clear picture of how your day will go. It will help you to be more productive and will ensure important tasks are not overlooked.

In addition to daily planning, make sure you plan for the medium- and long-term. Of course, our number-one priority in life is to seek the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:33). With this in mind, all of your plans should not deter from this goal.

Think of your future: Are you on track to reaching your objectives? Will you encounter any difficulties in reaching them if you continue your current lifestyle? Is what you are doing on a daily and weekly basis going to make you a better person a year from now? Often we do not take the time to go through this simple mental exercise despite its tremendous benefits.

On a higher level, mentally go through all the major roadblocks that could occur: losing a job, relocating to a different part of the country, dealing with a sudden illness in yourself or a loved one.

Considering these scenarios may not fully prevent them from happening. However, it could help you successfully maneuver through these changes if they come—effectively making your difficult path smoother.

There are many unexpected circumstances that could stymie your progress on the path. A great way to help you foresee these roadblocks, bumps or shifts in direction is to take a good look at the road you or others have walked so far.

The Road Behind

One of the best ways to avoid making mistakes in the future is to examine the past.

Start by asking: Did my prior actions work well? If not, what could I have done differently? When considering the deeds of others, you can analyze whether their actions led to failure or success. If failure, what can I do differently to succeed? If success, how can I copy their behavior to succeed as well?

Similar to looking ahead, you can ponder these questions while thinking about yesterday, the week prior, or major events further in the past.

As you approach this year’s Feast of Tabernacles, for instance, think about how last year’s Feast went. What successes did you experience? Maybe you arrived early before services to allow for fellowship and felt rested to ensure you were alert for the messages. Maybe you took steps to meet a new friend from a different part of the world. Whatever your successes were, plan to do the same things to help ensure success once again.

Also think of what did not work out as well as you hoped. Perhaps last year you did not pray and meditate during the Feast as much as you would have liked, and you want to do better. Maybe you could have served in a greater way. There are even things you could have missed that are not as dire such as not visiting a landmark you wanted to see because you did not plan any time for it. The key is to learn from the mistakes you make and grow from them by planning a different approach.

Another question to ask yourself as you take a gander at the road behind you: Have my actions lined up with God’s instructions?

An example: When many are first converted and experiencing their “first love” (Rev. 2:4), they want so badly to let everyone know the truths of God they are learning and share them with family and friends. Usually they do so with the hope that others will be equally excited. Yet fledgling Christians eventually learn that this is rarely the case.

God’s teachings are precious and He instructs us to handle them with care and only share them when we are asked (Matt. 7:6; I Pet. 3:15). Nevertheless, before we learn and fully understand, we can violate this principle, hoping it will open other people’s eyes.

Now we can look back and see that such actions do not line up with God’s Word, and that is the reason they did not work out in our favor. This experience helps new Christians learn to listen to God in the future.

Of course, there are also times that we learn, not from making the mistake ourselves, but from hearing or reading the mistakes of others in God’s Word. Over the years, many have been helped by sermons or Pillar articles detailing these missteps. Learning from others can help us avoid and even get out of trouble in the future.

Use these examples as a template for anything you may be pondering about from your past, especially problems you may still have but have not yet found a course of action that would make things better.

We can all learn lessons from both triumphs and failures. Though we should not wallow in grief because of failures, helpful lessons can come from them.

Light Your Path

A surveyor or bulldozer operator cannot build a road very effectively without light. Similarly, we cannot smooth out, roll flat or make level our ways without the light from a “lamp”—God’s Word. Psalm 119:105 states, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.”

Use God’s Word as the foundation as you ponder decisions, events and conversations ahead of you that could have far-reaching ramifications on your future. Digging into God’s Word while you ponder is crucial. Otherwise, you are just coming up with your own ideas!

Here are guidelines for how to use the Bible to clear up specific areas in your life:

• Study your problems topically. Look up all the verses you can call to mind regarding specific problems, whether avoiding strife and arguing, financial difficulties, and so forth. Use your Bible margins to notate related verses.
• Do a word search using a concordance. Looking up a specific word that relates to an area you are working on will point you to all the verses that can provide additional instruction.
• Call to mind a story from God’s Word that involves a similar situation to what you are experiencing. As you read, ponder the actions of the character and evaluate the outcomes—both positive and negative. Whether King David’s repentance, Job’s self-righteousness, King Saul’s stubbornness, Moses’ meekness and humility, these and other accounts are there to help us become established.

By relying on God’s wisdom, judgment and knowledge of future events detailed in His Word, you can avoid disaster and head toward prosperity.

Always Plan

So many in today’s society are unwilling to put forth the effort of planning and thinking through the ramifications of their actions or inactions. Some wake up in the morning with virtually no thought as to what the day should entail—let alone planning for years down the road.

As Christians, we must be different. From our first priority of seeking God’s Kingdom to other life-long goals such as getting married and starting a family, or even routine tasks such as when to mow the lawn, we must always ponder—roll flat, carefully measure, make level—the paths of our feet.

This is how our “ways will be established.” Taking adequate time to plan and foresee the trouble ahead is prudent (Prov. 22:3). It will allow us to minimize or maybe even eliminate the obstacles we encounter.

By putting God’s Word to use in all facets of our lives—past, present and future—we will be sure that our roads lead to the accomplishment of our goals, including our ultimate goal of being in the Kingdom of God.