From the Edges – Keeping on Track – Morning Devotional

From the Edges – Morning Devotional
Pastor Calvin Cook
April 18, 2024 – Keeping on Track

Scripture focus – Proverbs 3: 5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

This morning, I am thinking about the need to keep our center and focus. Often, we seem to get off track in many ways. Whether it be in our thinking, our actions, or our direction. When we get distracted, we get off track and it seems to so very difficult to get back on track.

The Cook side of my family had deep roots in the southern part of Somerset County in a community called Glencoe. One of the original homes still standing in that community is the original homestead of the Cook family. (Note – most of the houses and homes in Glencoe were lost by a devastating flood in the early 80’s. – only a few of the original homes remain.)

The community was very uniquely laid in the valley skirted by Wills Creek with the mainline of the railroad runs through it. Every time I think about keeping on track, I instantly think back to Glencoe. At least three generations of my family worked on the railroad and were very instrumental in its care. I remember all the stories my Dad would tell me of his days on the railroad and the stories of his Dad and Grand Pap and family.

While I thought about these stories, I compared them to today and the need we constantly must have to keep it on track, to keep focused. We get so distracted by so much and in that we constantly lose purpose and meaning. Jesus gave very clear instructions for us to keep it on the track. Simply by loving God and loving others and sharing that love of God with others so that they too might find hope becomes essential.

To keep it on the track, it will take a lot of desire to lean into God’s plans for our life. To trust completely in what God is saying to us, directing us to, and guiding us through will need to become essential. We will have to make God’s work our priority and everything will need to fit in around it. This is more than just attending Church.

As the great Spiritual Coach – the Holy Spirit is speaking this morning, may we all hear, “keep it on track, abide in me, trust in me, and your paths will be made straight.”

*Credit – the picture is from Pinterest – Pushers at Glencoe, PA. SD-40-2 #7605 westbound. 1982 photo B. Trogu