Your Morning Coffee 09/24/2025

Good morning!

Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to consider carefully who is in charge. You are, Father! You are, Jesus! You are, Holy Spirit! God help us to more fully embrace what it means to trust you in our day to day living. May we rest in your guidance, Father. Guide and direct our steps, by the Spirit, He who lives within us and makes us more like your son Jesus. In Jesus's name, inspire our hearts and minds to lean on your power over our lives! It is there whether we embrace it or not. Help us to embrace it! Help us to seek your face above all others. Amen.

Your Morning Song: "Grace By Which I Stand" by Keith Green

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RDrMAxed2cOdk&v=rMAxed2cOdk

Your Morning Scripture: Proverbs 20:24

A man's steps are from the Lord;

how then can man understand his way?

...

As often happens, I chose this verse for today's blog in a moment of intense inspiration, eagerly, excited to later sit down and talk through it with you. But as often happens, I cannot remember exactly what that inspiration was. I remember the feeling, the rush, the readiness, the rightness of it. But the actual "it" of it?

Gone. I have no idea what I was going to say.

And, as He often does, the Holy Spirit comforts me by reminding me of what comes next. It isn't about what I have to say. It is about what God Himself has to say. And if God wanted me to say those first passionate thoughts, then I would remember them. So, if I have forgotten them, then it absolutely must be for the better, for yours and for mine.

What should we do, then? Abandon the verse and try another? Sometimes that's what I do, and that's okay. I certainly don't mind if God shifts me somewhere else. There's nothing wrong with that.

But sometimes He won't let it go. And instead of moving me somewhere else, He holds me there. And I have to start over.

Because reading the Bible, His Word, is about what He has to say, not about what I have to say. So, let's take this verse, Proverbs 20:24, and look at the context around it to see if we can find the best possible way to understand it. God's way. In context with the verses around it, not the fickle context of my fallen heart.

Please, no matter what we find together in this verse today, recognize that your struggle is no different than mine. Read the Bible according to the Bible, and you will see God and yourself, clearly. Read the Bible according to your heart, and you will see only yourself, and poorly, and think God is there in the reflection. He will not be.

With the longest "disclaimer" of sorts to any devo than I've even done, you might even argue that today you got two for one, let's look at this verse, in context plainly.

"A man's steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way?"

There is the general sense, from this verse alone, that God is in control of our lives and we are not. And this is a fine place to start. But what do the verses around it say? Do they add any nuance or emphasis?

The whole chapter is full of what equates to human stumbling. If I have to trip and fall every time foolishness and wickedness is mentioned in this Proverb, you'd have to take me to the hospital after reading it. This Proverb, from the human perspective, is a mess.

Why?

Verse nine lays it out plainly with this question, "Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin”?

No one.

We are a stumbling, selfish, mess.

And the foolish and wicked try to pretend like they have any control over their own steps, how their life will go, how it will end.

But the wise and righteous daily depend on God for all things, walking in His ways, actively denying their own foolishness and sin.

Never assuming for a second that they are in control of anything other than whether or not they will obey God.

That is the sum of our lives, you who are my family in Jesus. Though some of the finer details may differ, our purpose in life is summed up in how we answer this one question who comes from the one who knows and makes and controls our very steps...

Will you obey?