The Red Bricks

 

          A friend tells the story of how English Ivy climbed the outer walls around his house and spilled over into his garden.  While the Ivy added beautiful character to his home, it had become time to take back the control of ‘it’s travels!’  As he began working with his gardening tools, he removed weeds, which added another element of the needed purging.  As he scraped and dug to get to the roots, he hit something hard.  Digging, he discovered a red brick, then another and another, until he unearthed an old brick pathway that had long been neglected and forgotten.  

The Ivy made him wonder what stories that red brick pathway could tell, if it could talk!  Imagine the people who walked its path; perhaps a child who rode his bicycle on it, or the comfort it might have given an older person who ‘planted’ his cane beside him on the hard surface for steadying as he walked; or the woman who lived in the house who might have used it on her way back and forth to the garden she once tended.  

Thinking of these possibilities of a simple red brick path that’s been ‘unearthed’ makes my mind meander over to the tedious work of an archeologist.  It’s amazing and exciting and gives me great joy, when I read that archeologists have uncovered another artifact that that proves once again, the Bible is completely accurate.  One of the most recent discoveries was another Dead Sea Scroll.

We are a modern people with an ‘it’s about me’ mentality.  We are focused on moving forward and upward on the corporate ladder, working long days to be able to provide for our families in the best way possible; while materialist advertising attempts to usurp our thoughts to look only at our own wants and desires rather than our suffering neighbor, or perhaps the homeless and sometimes even our own families when it comes to spending ‘time’ with them.  

We’ve been given God’s Word which outlines the ‘ancient paths’ which God laid plain for us to follow.  Because of our lifestyles, we’ve become much like the English Ivy that climbed those walls.  We’re going in all directions at breakneck speed, and neglect the paths designed for our greater good.  Weeds and roots begin covering and burying what we know to be true and right until the path isn’t even visible.

When we finally realize our paths designed by God have been hidden from our sight and ultimately our lives, we need to get out the ‘gardening tools’ and get to work cleaning!  It’s time to pull out the Bible and dig into the nuggets, including those within the Old Testament, to find those timeless paths written down for our benefit.

Perhaps your life is filled to overflowing with the schedule you keep.  Perhaps ‘Ivy’ has covered your personal red brick pathway.  Changes in our world sometimes come at such a rapid pace, it’s hard to keep up, as we attempt to adapt.  We are told the changes are for our good; but are they, as the world would like us to believe?  Is this the time to ‘unearth’ the ancient pathways and see what God wants from our lives instead?

Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/nature-wall-plant-brambles-flowers-2212972/