The Ancient Paths

I don’t know why I was thinking about the ice cream truck.
Maybe because I did our weekly food shopping and ice cream was on sale.
I remember that truck so vividly.
Mr. Softee.
He came conveniently every night at a time when most families had just finished dinner.

You could hear his merry go round type music before you could see his truck.
It was such a treat to be allowed to buy ice cream from him.
He would always have a line in front of his service window.
He was the truck driver and the ice cream proprietor, all in one.

Another truck frequented our neighborhood a few times each summer.
The mosquito guy…that is what we called him.
He drove his truck and actually sprayed repellent as he went along.
Many mothers, like my own, would tell us to stay away from that truck and come inside.
There were boys who followed the truck and rode their bikes in the mist that was sprayed.

How things have changed.
Wooden cutting boards harbor bacteria.
Drinking from an outside hose on a summer day is unhealthy.
Getting up to change the TV channel is seen as a waste of time.

In elementary school, jobs were assigned in the classroom.
Clapping erasers, washing chalkboards, selling pretzels.
Selling pretzels?
Yes…everyday a brown shopping bag with soft pretzels was brought around the room.

I wish I could remember how much the pretzels cost.
I do remember that the money went right inside the bag.
Just dropped right in…mixed with the pretzels.
The person selling the pretzels reached in and out of the bag to make change.

Somehow…we survived.

We cannot imagine the changes someone like Laura Ingalls Wilder experienced.
Out houses to indoor plumbing.
Covered wagons to railroads.
Oil lamps to electricity.

Our children cannot imagine the life we lived.
Letter writing instead of emails and texts.
Encyclopedias instead of internet searches.
iPods instead of albums, eight tracks, and cassettes.
One house phone instead of one phone in everyone’s pocket.
Three channels on TV instead of the plethora of choices that exist today.

Even though from time to time we have a hint of nostalgia, progress is a good thing.
Progress must never be at the expense of people, however.
The community that God intended does not take place in a vacuum.

Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. (Jeremiah 6:16)

Each generation thinks that their advances are the best.
However, what we consider best soon becomes passe…antiquated…right before our eyes.

Nostalgia sometimes keeps us in the “good old days” mentality.
That is never productive.
Until Jesus comes back, we have a job to do.
We have to do that job with the tools at hand.

We can be advanced in our technology…yet naive in our worldview.

Are WE the center of the universe, or is GOD?
Do we have a humanistic worldview or a Christian worldview?

No matter how far we have come in every other area of our life, we are going backwards if we do not have our priorities right.
God must be first!

We began to think we know better than God.
That was the beginning of our downfall.

We have continued to make decisions as if He is out of the equation.
One can argue that this humanistic worldview has turned us over to ourselves.

The ancient paths, talked about in God’s Word, are the paths of those that came before us…who believed God’s promises and who walked with God.
The ancient paths are guideposts.
Without them, we are lost.

If we truly want to go forward…we must go back.
Back to the ancient paths.
Where God is first…and we follow Him.
Where God is central…and we are on the periphery.
Where God is on His Throne…and we are not!

The humanistic worldview disregards the past, because the past is found lacking.
We are in a state of continual betterment…or so we think!

The Christian worldview holds onto the ancient paths.
What God instituted…what God defined…cannot be made better.

We progress only when we follow where He leads us.

Where there is no vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18 KJV)

We are myopic in our view, if we only look to ourselves for answers.
We have no answers…apart from HIM.
We fool ourselves…if we trust in ourselves.
We are no better than the boys on their bikes riding in the toxic mist.

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Keep to the old roads
Keep to the old roads
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way…

And I know you’ll be scared when you take up that cross
And I know it’ll hurt, ’cause I know what it costs
And I love you so much and it’s so hard to watch
But you’re gonna grow up and you’re gonna get lost
Just go back, go back…

Go back, go back to the ancient paths
Lash your heart to the ancient mast
And hold on, boy, whatever you do
To the hope that’s taken hold of you
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way
If love is what you’re looking for
The old roads lead to an open door
And you’ll find your way
You’ll find your way
Back home

Excerpt from You’ll Find Your Way, by Andrew Peterson
From his album, “Light for the Lost Boy”