1FaithfulWarrior – Brilliantly Bold

Newsflash! I LOVE to hike. All along the paths of the trails that I traverse, I am guided by cairns that show me which way to proceed. Sometimes, the path ahead of me is not always clear. I need something to show me which way to go…either I am going in the right direction, or I am on the wrong path and need to redirect. Other times, I THINK that I am on the right path, but a distant cairn tells me otherwise.

Last week when I was hiking, the cairns got me thinking – we need cairns everywhere we go…not just when we hike. Visualize this with me for a moment and let me show you how these path markers can be applied to our everyday lives.

Your cairns help you find the right direction. They help you from getting lost. Have you ever built one? They require patience and great thought because you have to balance each stone in such a precise way that they fit together and stand as one. It takes physical effort to bring harmony to the stones that are stacked before you.

How freakin’ cool would it be to have our own personal cairns show us where to go or what to do? Like, they would make it SO obvious and let us know, “Crap, you are on the wrong path, girl! Turn around and take a different way.” Or, “Yes, this road is tough, but it is the right way…so keep going. It will be worth the effort!”

Ponder all of that for a moment.

So here’s the good news: We DO have our own personal cairn that show each one of us which way to go. It is God. He plants those guiding lights for us everywhere. We just need to pause, look and listen. Listen with your heart. Feel His direction with your soul.The only way to do this is to open yourself up to the directions that are literally right in from of your face. They have ALWAYS been there, but we’ve just been too busy to see them…hear them…feel them.

God took the time to carefully and intentionally place each stone – the stones that He knows are best for us – so that our pathway is balanced. That is what He wants for each of us.

The path that we should be on is not always the path that we ARE on. He lets us know through gently whispers and tugs at our hearts, “Wrong way!! Go here!“

If our heart isn’t open, we won’t see or hear the direction that we are supposed to go. We get lost.

We take the long way or the completely wrong way. We either end up somewhere were aren’t supposed to be at all or we go to a destination that was not intended for us. There was a better way, a clearer path. A direct route…but we missed it.

My prayer for you today is that you pay attention to the cairns that are before you. May you pause long enough to see the beacons that God has meticulously laid out before you.

May you follow your cairns.

Jen