Signposts: Daily Devotions

Written by Renée Miller

Wednesday, April 9

When you walk, [the commandments] will lead you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; and when you awake, they will talk with you.
—Proverbs 6:22

When we walk, our minds are usually busy--thinking or musing about activities that are on the horizon, or things etched and imprinted on our lives from the past. When we lie down hoping to slide into the quiet of sleep, we try to still our mind and let our thoughts slip away like clouds passing softly across the sky. When we waken from the shades of night, we usually try to rouse our minds to begin the process all over again.

What if when we walked, we allowed the commandments, or words, of the Holy One lead us? Instead of thinking, musing, or reminiscing, what if we allowed a phrase—like "love others like you love yourself"—to roll around in our soul, letting it become one with our step and our breath? Or, what if when we stretched out our body at day's end we felt the words The One who watches over you will not fall asleep slipping through our entire body like smoke filling an empty cavern with a sweet-smelling scent?

What if we really woke up and felt and heard and tasted the words, I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses—choose life that you may truly live, and felt ourselves wanting to respond by choosing life? There's the chance that we would find our thoughts had become like pebbles sinking in a pond, and for once we could see clearly to the bottom of our soul.

O God, let me learn your words so that they form me from the inside out.

The Signposts for April are written by Renée Miller and originally appeared on explorefaith.org in May 2004.