Proverbs 5:21

Proverbs 5:21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, And He ponders all his paths.

A good parent steers his children away from danger. A loving parent doesn't want to see his children be destroyed by their actions or led to destruction by the acts of others. What a great Parent our Heavenly Father is! This chapter and others deal so clearly with the consequences and dangers of men seeking satisfaction outside of the relationship between God and man, and between man and wife. The Father doesn't want His children to be led away by lust and wickedness, which lead to death.

So often God gets bad-mouthed for being a cosmic kill-joy, for getting in the way of our fun or being too narrow by insisting that Jesus is the only way to Himself. Yet how clearly this chapter points out that it is our wickedness that leads to death, it is our choices that can trap us and lead us astray, and it is our Father who loves us enough to tell us the truth. It is the Father who is trying to steer us clear of danger.

Of course the immediate application of verse 21 is that all these wicked ways of men are not hidden, but bare, before the Lord. God thinks about all of man's paths, his choices and desires and hopes and failures.

The knowledge that God is always watching us can either cause us to be fearful or resentful or it can bring praise to our lips, depending on which side of the sin fence we stand. If we are in sin, how troublesome it is to know that the Mighty and Powerful Judge is watching, yet if we have had our sins paid for through faith in Jesus and are walking in right-ness before Him, how wonderfully comforting to know that our Father watching and loving us!

We can be so comforted by the fact that our ways are before the eyes of the Lord, yet let us not dilute the truth. The Lord knows our hearts, that they are wicked and in need of healing and cleansing, so He will persist in conforming us to His image, He will persist in allowing circumstances that destroy the flesh and give life to the spirit.

Silver and Gold are retrieved most often, not through finding a nugget on the ground, but in taking tons and tons of ore and crushing and grinding it to small pieces where it is then superheated to thousands of degrees, causing the precious metal to liquify and the useless waste to separate so that it can be removed. God is going to get that silver and gold that Jesus birthed in us by His Spirit, and it is going to involve the crushing and burning of the old man and the separation to purity of the new man.

So God will allow trials and tribulations to purify and cleanse us of impurity if we let Him. Yet if we choose to continue to walk in our sin, there is nothing but death. We can either spend our eternity with God in heaven, worshipping at His feet, or we can endure an everlasting torment in the pit of hell.

Pursuing anything other than Jesus Himself will lead to death. God is watching and hoping that we will choose Him! Thank you Lord for your patience and love! How great You are!