Step by Step

     Many of the things I purchase these days have a little pamphlet in them which will say something similar to "quick start", or "Introducing your product."  The steps are set forth in the most simple way indicating how you can begin using your product.  I got a new blood sugar monitoring meter recently and there were two pamphlets inside, well actually three as one of them was in Spanish.  The English ones included the full instruction booklet of over a hundred pages and then there was the quick start one that had the list of easy steps.  It would begin with a listing of what was in the box and where to insert or check the battery and then went through a number of steps all the way down to measuring your sugar level in your blood.  Steps are important in the simple things in life.  If you follow them, things turn out the way they should.  When you skip a step, forget a step or ignore a step, things don't come out all right.   Psalm 37:23-24 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand." 
     This is a comforting thought for the believer.  There are steps in our Christian life.  We don't even know all that they entail, but we know they are there.  A verse or thought like today's verse, reminds us that God is the one who set up the steps in the first place.  He knows the way in which we should go and how we are going to get there.  That is contained in the word,"ordered."  One definition includes the following:  "to be firm, be stable, be established."  God establishes our steps.   Do you sometimes wonder what God is doing in your life?  I recall going down the steps at one of the churches where I was the associate pastor.  It was dark and I thought I was at the bottom, but there was one more step.  I had quite a fall because I missed the last step.  It will be comforting for us to know that God has our steps all lined up and you will not miss one that He has for you.  You may not understand all of them, but God does.  You can go out in confidence today realizing that God has ordered, or established, your steps today and actually each and every day.  Praise God today that He has a hold on our hands.