"The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace." Isa. 59:8
So often in life we say things, things we have learned over the years, colloquialisms I believe they are called. We say them without really understanding the truth behind the phrase. One such statement is a Mother Goose poem:
"There was a crooked man,
And he walked a crooked mile.
He found a crooked sixpence,
Beside a crooked stile;
He bought a crooked cat,
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together,
In a little crooked house."
Growing up I always loved this poem. I never really understood it, but I loved how it progressed. The other day, however, I was reading the Bible and I came across Isaiah the fifty-nineth chapter and the eight verse. It is kind of a sum of all things proceeding it, detailing the end of those that "know not the way of peace."
When I came to the passage "they have made them crooked paths" I thought of the poem I had recited so many times. People aren't just evil in one way, if they walk a crooked mile then the money they receive will be found by a crooked stile. Everything about them is leaning in a crooked direction. They cannot be straight in one aspect if they walk that crooked path. Even their home shall be of a crooked nature. For a Christian, this is something that can really damage our lives and worse, our testimony. If we begin walking that crooked path of sin, so laden with the cares of this life, then by the nature of the walk itself, our way conforms to the journey we have chosen. Indeed, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Pro. 14:12) You see, this scripture doesn't stop with just telling how life will end, it continues to describe the life one will lead. "Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful; and the end of that mirth is heaviness." (Vs. 13). No matter how hard you try, this is a law of God. We will fall in the direction we lean.
Yet, if we do begin walking a crooked mile, and even start smiling a crooked smile, there is hope because our Lord will never leave us nor forsake us. He will be with us "even unto the end of the world." (Mat. 28:20) He always makes a way to escape from the situation we are in [I Cor. 10:13]. We must just be willing to take it. Sometimes it might be apologizing or acknowledging that we were wrong and asking for forgiveness. Sometimes it is just not walking that crooked path. |
