Back to Basics.

It is rather important in life to get back to the basics of understanding the place that scripture has in our lives. It can get very easy to be distracted from the narrow pathway that christians are called to be upon and to move into other areas outside of the boundaries that have been established by God.
Pathways along streams are a nice place to visit. To be able to hear the gentle gurgling of a brook and the casual chirping of birds flying overhead. To witness the scampering squirrels rustling through the wooded forest and to hear the wind as it moves through the trees.
This path is clearly designated through the boundaries placed on it by nature. It has been carved by many years of erosion and by the cooperation of man. It is placed within the actual forest but taking a central place of nature being domesticated.
Life within God's plan is much like that. We have the general tenets of what we are to believe as christians and the truth that it entails. We have a mandate to be imitators of Christ through the writings of St. Paul and the sermons that Jesus gave during his ministry. His sermons and messages were not prepared and drafted but were spoken from the heart. I am almost certain that Jesus would have spoken of the path along the stream and given similar comparisons.
He spoke often of paths when he gave the illustration of the four types of the soil and the seeds. He never favored the path as a place for the seed. It is good for the path to be walked upon but not for the growth of the seed. Yet the path is needed to guide fellow pilgrims through life and to give signposts of what is ahead.
In the letter to the Philipians, Paul states that to know Christ is to endure His sufferings and to attain a deep fellowship amongst each other. It is that taking up of the cross which is most difficult and yet can be unifying and rewarding as well. Enduring sufferings and taking up of the cross can be done through self-denial and the avoidance of deceit. To be able to realize that one does not receive what is offered through false expectations or deception allows the roots of christians to grow. Only if I have attained that but that is the goal that I am slowly learning in the pathways of life on the face of the earth.